Fair or foul? Sox won't talk about Cabrera's shot in 7th

There's hardly enough room to breathe inside Wrigley Field's cramped visitors clubhouse, much less room to brainstorm.

Yet the White Sox staff and coaches carved out enough space in their small rectangular quarters to set up and link a few laptops, which enabled them to start the search for a few lost runs minutes after Friday's 4-3 defeat to the Cubs.

Specifically, they wondered if Orlando Cabrera's long foul ball off Ted Lilly in the seventh inning might actually have been a 2-run homer.

At the same time relievers Octavio Dotel and Scott Linebrink explained the 3 solo homers that gave the Cubs the victory, Sox computer scouting analyst Mike Gellinger, third-base coach Jeff Cox and bench coach Joey Cora wound and rewound the Cabrera videotape in an effort to see if it went off the left-field foul pole.

They couldn't slow it down enough to tell for certain, which doesn't bode well for Major League Baseball's stated preference for installing instant replay by August.

They wouldn't talk about their conclusions on the record -- and their off-the-record conclusions were mixed.

One thing they knew for sure: Cabrera's ball bounced off something and ricocheted into the fans sitting in foul territory.

Nobody with the Sox raised a stink at the time, though Cabrera put his bat on his helmet in dismay when third-base umpire Mike Everett signaled a foul ball.

Had it been ruled a fair ball, it would have given the Sox a 5-1 lead in the seventh.

Since the Sox didn't discuss it, the Cubs had to fill the void.

Who better to give his viewpoint than reliever Scott Eyre, who was stationed in the bullpen down the left-field line?

There's just one problem: Eyre didn't watch the ball until its flight concluded.

"He was so far in front of it (Lilly threw a changeup), usually the ball hooks way foul," Eyre said. "I thought, 'Oh, that's going to go foul,' so I didn't even look. I guess the wind pushed it."

Left fielder Matt Murton was running toward the pole, so he didn't have the best angle. But he didn't necessarily see anything that suggested a stolen homer -- or ensured that the umpire made the correct call.

"Oh, it was close," Murton said. "There's no doubt that it was close. From my vantage point, it seemed as if it may have been foul.

"I think it hit the back fence. If you notice down the line, there's a fence behind there just foul of the foul pole. I think it may have hit that."