Netflix Bungles the First ABS Call in MLB History

Baseball is a sport known for marking its history with reverence and respect, but someone forgot to tell Netflix.

The streaming giant tasked with bringing the first game of the 2026 MLB season to viewers worldwide failed to cover the first ABS challenge in the history of regular-season Major League Baseball. Why? Because it was conducting an interview with San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello at the time.

Cameras did show Yankees shortstop Tony Caballero touch his helmet in the fourth inning, the signal to request a review of a strike call, but then Netflix cut away to the interview with Vitello.

To remove the suspense, Caballero lost the challenge as the pitch was called a strike. But viewers only learned that from the public-address announcer in the background because Netflix was still talking to Vitello.

Play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian then informed viewers about what had transpired after the interview with Vitello wrapped up.

There was also more than mere history at stake here.

While many fans watched spring training, where ABS was in frequent use, they became familiar with how the system worked. However, far more people didn’t watch sprint training, had no idea how it worked, and would have benefited from seeing the process play out.

True, Netflix had no idea a challenge was about to take place, as they are unpredictable. But maybe there should have been a plan for postponing the interview in the event of an ABS challenge?

Something like that would have made sense.