The bizarre ending of a recent game between the Central League’s Hiroshima Carp and Yomiuri Giants was a wakeup call for umpires, according to participants and veteran umpires.

The Carp beat the Giants 3-2 on May 4 at Mazda Stadium because of an umpire’s failure to follow procedure on a routine play that fooled players from both teams into making bad choices.

With one out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth of a 2-2 game at Hiroshima’s Mazda Stadium, pinch hitter Tetsuya Kokubo hit a high popup in front of the plate and home plate ump Hideto Fuke failed to inform players the infield fly rule was in effect. The ball dropped fair, and Giants first baseman Juan Francisco gathered it and stepped on home plate for what he believed was a forceout.

“The home plate umpire has to call ‘infield fly, batter out if fair,’ ” said Osamu Ino, a member of Nippon Professional Baseball’s umpiring technical committee.

Carp rookie Takayoshi Noma was also fooled by the lack of a call and ran home.

“I was certain it should have been an infield fly, but I could only see the home plate umpire. The only thing he did was gesture it was fair,” Noma told Kyodo News this past week. “The ball was in play and I had to run and it looked like I was going to be forced out.”

Fuke said afterward he did a poor job of communicating that the batter was out to the player. But he signaled the ball was fair and then held up his thumb after Francisco stepped on home and made no call when Noma crossed the plate — until after third base coach Takuro Ishii informed him that crew chief Koichi Tamba had called the batter out on the infield fly rule.

“I went to confirm that it had in fact been an infield fly,” Ishii said of the situation.

“The home plate ump said he was not entirely certain what was going on, the base umpire (Tamba) came running down to tell him it was an infield fly and thus the runner needed to be tagged.”

Only at that point did Fuke signal safe.

“I made a mistake,” Noma said. “I really shouldn’t have gone, but it’s a good thing I did.”

Giants pitcher Scott Mathieson was headed back to the mound to try and get the inning’s final out when the Carp began celebrating their victory.

“I mean I knew the rule,” he said. “I didn’t know why he didn’t call an infield fly. And then he called an out. It was a crazy play, happens every 10 years. Just get over it.”

Actually, it had been 24 years since a game had ended on a play like that. On June 5, 1991, the Carp, en route to their last Central League pennant, lost by the same 3-2 score at Yokohama Stadium. One of the players that day was current Carp skipper Koichi Ogata, who raced from the dugout to argue after Noma was not called safe immediately.

“That’s the kind of play you don’t forget,” said Yutaka Takagi, who played second base for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales that day 24 years ago. “When (Carp catcher Mitsuo) Tatsukawa saw it was going to land fair, he let it drop and stepped on home plate and didn’t think about a tag, even though the umpire had called the batter out. Tatsukawa told me he didn’t sleep at all that night. I think the umpires were better than they are now.”

Ino and colleague Takeshi Hirabayashi on Thursday acknowledged umpires need to constantly be on their toes.

Hirabayashi, who umpired for years in the U.S. minor leagues, said it is not about knowing the rules, but applying that knowledge when it counts.

“What matters is what you do on the field,” Hirabayashi said. “That’s where success and failure are decided. It’s the same way for umpires.”