Selig: 'Historic day' for instant replay in MLB

Bob Nightengale | USA TODAY Sports

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- Major League Baseball decided Thursday to implement instant replay on virtually every play but the strikezone - including three manager's challenges per game - that will begin in 2014, Commissioner Bud Selig announced.

"It's a historic day,'' Selig said.

MLB vice president Joe Torre, Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz and advisor Tony La Russa presented the all-encompassing replay proposal to the 30 ownership groups, which was widely accepted, Selig said, and expected to be formalized at their quarterly owners' meetings Nov. 13-14 in Orlando, Fla.

The replay will include up to three challenges that mangers will be provided during a game, one in the first six innings, and two beginning in the seventh inning through the game's duration. If a manager is successful with his replay challenge, he will not be charged with a review.

If a manager exhausts his three challenges, and umpire crew can make a review of its own only to determine home-run calls, a rule that will be grandfathered in with the new regulations.

Baseball, using its central MLBAM offices in New York, will be provided with replay cameras that will be monitored by men with umpiring experience. They will make the final call on disputed plays, not the crew chief.