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With access to an option Whitey Herzog didn’t have in 1985, Pat Murphy challenged the call, and it quickly became clear that what had actually happened was Yelich had beaten the throw and was safe at second base. Second-base umpire Dan Bellino, not out of malice or incompetence but simply a failure of judgment, had reversed the actions of the players on the field, just as Don Denkinger had done in 1985. Here in 2026, we have a backstop that ensures that it’s the players, not the umpires, who determine what happens on a baseball diamond.
This was the biggest moment in the 18-year history of replay use in MLB, not just for what it did -- turn the end of an inning into the continuation of the rally in the World Series -- but for what followed. Scored an infield hit, Contreras’s ball would be the first of seven consecutive hits by the Brewers, plating eight runs and just about ending this World Series. We got to see the alternate path that Worrell and Herzog and Denkinger never did, and our game is better for it. The human element in baseball is Yelich beating out a throw, and Brice Turang following it with a left-on-left single, and five of his teammates following him to the plate with hits.
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