DETROIT -- Kenny Rogers thinks the New York Yankees caused Major League Baseball to start allowing umpires to consult instant replay on home run calls.
One of the most replayed blown calls of the year came May 21, when the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez lost a home run on a blown call -- the ball went over the fence but the umpire thought it didn't and A-Rod was given a double.
"I don't like it," Rogers said after MLB announced Tuesday that instant replay will start being used this week. "I think that it overshot the mark by far just because, what, in a Yankee game someone didn't get a homer? Please. It's happened thousands of times. That's part of the game. It's the beauty of the game. Mistakes are made."
The Detroit Tigers left-hander, who pitched for the Yankees 1996-97, thinks MLB's decision shows a lack of support for the umps.
"It's a slap in the face of umpires that have been here for a long time and they've done a very good job with difficult situations in all aspects," Rogers said. "So they made the call wrong once in a while. We've all done things wrong once in a while."
"For every human individual out there, we're all playing our best. We make errors. It's part of the game," Rogers said. "We don't get a chance to go back -- 'I want a mulligan.' -- It's not the way it works. It's not the way it should work."
