After a two year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball umpires will follow in the footsteps of NFL referees and announce the decisions of replay reviews.

In previous years, after a review of the contested play, the umpires simply made a hand signal of the result; beginning with the 2022 MLB season, the crew chief will have a wireless microphone where he will announce the disputed call and which team initiated the protest.  Once the decision is made, the crew chief will announce that decision.

The audio from the microphone will be broadcast over the public address system and will be available for broadcasters covering the game.

MLB executive vice president Morgan Sword spoke on the decision saying, “we discussed the possibility of doing this with the umpires during their most recent CBA negotiation and then COVID got in the way our planning. We finally were able this year to give them the appropriate training and get everybody ready for opening day.”

Replay calls came the Major League Baseball in 2008 but only for home run calls.  In 2014, MLB expanded the span of calls available for review.

Of the 1,305 calls challenged by teams last season, just over half of them were overturned with only 16.9 percent of them confirmed.