Could Replay Review Have Prevented the Phillies from Winning the World Series in 1980?

Controversial plays happen, particularly in the World Series.  Not all of them are as clear-cut as the blown call in the bottom of the ninth inning of game 6 of the 1985 World Series, where Royals Jorge Orta was called safe at first.  Had replay review existed back then, Orta would have been called out, and the Cardinals would have captured another World Championship.  Instead, the Royals staged a comeback in that inning, and then took game 7 to win their first World Championship.

But other plays are not so clear-cut, and spark debate among sports fans for decades.  Had replay review existed, would it have changed the outcome of the entire World Series?  Some of those plays, though controversial at the time, have faded into the background of baseball history.

One such play occurred in game 5 of the 1980 World Series.  Rookie phenom, and Pitcher of the Month for September, Marty Bystrom took the mound against the Royals.  Bystrom had a tough outing against the Royals, giving up many hits.  But the stellar Phillies defense kept him out of trouble through five innings.

When the bottom of the fifth inning began, the Phillies had a 2-0 lead, off of a fourth inning two-run home run by Mike Schmidt with Bake McBride on base.  U.L. Washington and Willie Wilson led off the inning with singles.  A Frank White bunt put the runners in scoring position.  George Brett knocked in Washington with a ground out that also advanced Wilson to third.  Bystrom then walked Willie Aikens, to put runners on the corners.  With one run in, and two outs, the Royals were on the verge of a big inning.  They had already cut the lead in half, with the tying run ninety feet from scoring.  Hal McRae came to the plate and swung at the first pitch offered by Bystrom.  McRae hit a long drive into the right field corner.  Right fielder Bake McBride disappeared from the camera angle, but emerged from the corner with the ball in hand.  McRae was called out.  The Royals' mini-rally was over.

But as NBC was ready to cut to commercial, they showed a second camera angle that had actually captured McBride's catch.  McBride could be seen leaping into the air a few feet away from the big yellow foul line on the wall, and catching the ball in foul territory.  But as play-by-play announcer Joe Garagiola expressed his amazement at the catch, his color announcer, Toby Kubek, begged to differ.  Kubek thought the ball hit the wall before going into McBride's glove.  NBC then showed the replay a few more times, with Garagiola and Kubek continuing to disagree.

There was no replay review at the time.  Moreover, the super-slow motion, high definition video had not yet been developed.  At best, the ball was a white blur heading into McBride's glove.  Some will argue that you can see that white blur going in a straight line, and then changing directions before going into McBride's glove.  An interview before game 6 between McBride and Bryant Gumble offered no clarification.  McBride admitted to Gumble that when he leaped into the air and against the wall, he closed his eyes.  When asked what he thought after seeing the video replay, unsurprisingly McBride responded that he thought he caught the ball.

Could a replay review have changed the outcome of the 1980 World Series?  If the play had been overturned, it would not have resulted in a hit.  The ball was clearly in foul territory.  But McRae's at-bat, and thus the inning, would have continued, giving Kansas City the chance to mount a two-out rally.

As it turns out, Bystrom gave up two runs and the lead in the sixth inning.  He was yanked in favor of Ron Reed, who, along with Tug McGraw in the seventh and eighth, held the Royals to a 3-2 lead.  The score remained that way until the top of the ninth, when Del Unser knocked in Mike Schmidt with an RBI double to tie the game, and Manny Trillo knocked in Unser to take the lead.  The Phils went on to win game 5 by a score of 4-3, taking a 3 games to 2 lead into Philadelphia.

The result of overturning the McBride catch is not as clear-cut at the Orta single in 1985.  Perhaps the Royals could have mounted a multi-run rally in the bottom of the fifth.  Perhaps it could have swung the momentum in Kansas City's direction.  On the other hand, in 1980, the Phillies were known for their come from behind wins.  After game 5, all 6 of the Phillies' play-off wins, including the NLCS, were come from behind wins.

And so, while the McBride catch is familiar to older, die-hard Phillies fans, it's impact has faded into nothing more than an interesting memory and trivia point.  Nonetheless, giving the fickle way in which momentum can change between two evenly matched teams, as the Phillies and Royals were in 1980, had replay review reversed that call, the Phillies may not have won their first World Championship after ninety-seven years in existence that year.

William J. Kovatch, Jr.