Baseball Rules Corner.(foul poles)

Foul poles often the center of home run controversies

EVERY MAJOR LEAGUE BALL PARK has foul poles. Although they range in size and color, they serve the same purpose of helping umpires determine whether batted balls are fair or foul.

The term foul pole is a misnomer since they are in fair territory. Any batted ball that strikes the pole or its attached netting is a fair ball and is ruled a home run. This is something we learn in Rules 101 class. To carry it one step further, any ball that flies directly over a pole is ruled a home run as are batted balls that wrap around the pole in fair territory before landing in a section of seats in foul territory. If a batted ball initially hooks around a pole in foul territory and lands fair, it is a foul ball.

Despite its simplicity, each season umpires find themselves in the middle of controversial rulings concerning fair and foul balls that are near the poles. Refusal of major league baseball to use the replay camera on such distance calls has not helped the problem. This is a subject I discussed in a previous column.

On June 12, the Yankees hosted the Expos in an interleague game at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the 12th inning, Mark Smith hit a disputed home run off Yankee pitcher Ramiro Mendoza to give the Expos a 2-1 victory.

Ralph Nelson, Major League Baseball's vice-president of umpires, viewed a tape brought to him by Yankee general manager Brian Cashman and agreed with the Yankees that the wrong call was made.

That's really nothing new. Throughout the history of the game, umpires have had to battle those foul poles from a far distance. It's all a part of the foul pole story.