Major League Baseball unleashes its new instant replay system this weekend. They apparently spent $2.5 million on it. Granted, that’s how much a crappy middle reliever makes in salary, but what in the world kind of cameras do they have for this? Ones that get inside the baseball as it passes the foul pole? Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see if they jump at the chance to show off their new equipment sometime this weekend and review a home run that goes into left-center field. Since instant replay (however few plays are “reviewable”) is now in baseball, the Top 7 this week looks at several famous plays that needed replay.

7. Bret Boone
Since one of the first parks that is using replay is Wrigley Field, here’s a little-known call that happened there. Boone hit his third home run of the game in a late 90s game while playing for the Reds. His third of the game was one of the most obviously foul balls that you will ever see. It was seriously ten feet foul, maybe more. After word spread at Wrigley that they had just been hosed, the fans proceeded to throw up the home run signal when any foul ball was hit for the remainder of the game. Then they probably threw a bunch of stuff on the field.

6. Chuck Knoblauch
In the 1999 Red Sox/Yankees ALCS, when people outside of those two areas weren’t nauseated by the mere mentions of their names, Chuck Knoblauch missed Jose Offerman by about two feet on a tag while he was running to second. The umpire called him out and the inning was over instead of a potential at-bat by Nomar with a runner on second.

5. Jeffrey Maier
It is kind of humorous that the beginning of Derek Jeter’s run as the “ungodly most clutch guy ever in the history of anything of all-time” involved a home run that shouldn’t have ever counted. Jeter hit a ball that most likely would have been caught by Tony Tarasco at the right field wall, but was instead ruled a home run despite 12-year old Maier interfering. It tied the score at 4 in the bottom of the 8th, the Yankees (of course) won the game, which was only Game 1. They won the series 4-1 and the 1996 World Series.

4. Angels/White Sox third strike
A.J. Pierzynski had just struck out on a ball close to the dirt in Game 2 of the 2005 ALCS, but just started running afterwards, pretending that the catcher had not caught the third strike. The umpire, amazingly considering Pierzynski’s reputation, allowed him to have first base. Joe Crede ended up doubling him home, tying the game, and the Sox ended up winning in extra innings to even the series at 1. They didn’t lose another game the rest of the playoffs, beating the Angels in five and sweeping the Astros in the Series.

3.Matt Holliday
This one is just strange. If last year’s 2007 tiebreaker NL game had more of a conclusive ending, it could have gone down as one of the greatest games ever. Instead, it ended with a busted nose and no one really had no idea what was going on. Replay would have definitely been used had it been available in this case, but people still argue as to what the correct call was now.

2. Livan Hernandez
In the 1997 NLCS, Livan Hernandez got a 45-foot strike zone from umpire Eric Gregg. It helped him strike out 15 Braves, win Game 5 of that series, and eventually win the World Series, and Livan-mania was underway. Livan-mania continues today, as he sports a cool 600 ERA for the Colorado Rockies.

1.Don Denkinger
Let’s just not even talk about it.