HATTIESBURG — The conversation didn’t shift in the Pete Taylor Park outfield. Even as Ole Miss piled on runs to take the super regionals opener Saturday 10-0 against Southern Miss, fans couldn’t turn their attention.
“Was it really fair or foul?” fans whispered from their folding chairs.
With Ole Miss ahead 3-0 in the fifth, Reece Ewing sent what appeared to be his 11th home run — this one a grand slam to take the lead — over the right-field wall.
The Southern Miss home run horn sounded and fans banged their feet throughout the bleachers, until the umpires raised their hands signaling it foul. The call stood after review, though it created some debate on social media.
Dana Britt, sporting an Ole Miss hat, sat just beyond the right-field pole. As the ball zoomed toward her, declaring whether it was fair or foul wasn’t on her mind.
“I hope somebody catches it before it gets to me because I don’t want to fall down this hill,” Britt thought to herself.
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It stopped before reaching her. She thought it was a nice hit. Then, she realized it had snuck just right (her left) of the pole.
Brandon Hillman was standing down the first-base line when the ball left the bat, and his initial reaction aligned with the call. The big screen flashed the replay a couple times, but Hillman based his judgment off the reaction of those nearest the pole.
The sea of black and gold lining the outfield wasn’t as enthusiastic as he would expect from a momentum-swinging grand slam.
“I hoped it was fair,” said Hillman, a Southern Miss alumnus, “but it was not. That could’ve been a game-changing play.”
The 10-run edge for Ole Miss gives the appearance the call wouldn’t have changed the result, but Robert Corey has watched baseball too long to reach that conclusion.
Corey graduated from Southern Miss in 2017, worked for the school’s College of Arts and Sciences shortly after and has attended every game since 2012.
He was sitting above the third-base dugout and could see it was foul. Ewing struck out against Ole Miss starter Dylan DeLucia on the next pitch after the review to end the inning, and he could tell Southern Miss was in trouble then.
“Baseball is a morale game,” Corey said. “You get an upset like that, it gets in their heads. That’s how it is. That’s how it is across all of baseball.”
Stefan Krajisnik is the Mississippi State beat writer for the Clarion Ledger. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @skrajisnik3.
