Will Smith, Dodgers vindicated by new report on pivotal World Series Game 7 play

It turns out that Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the Toronto Blue Jays weren't "inches" away from a World Series title, after all.

Los Angeles Dodgers fans will never forget the game-saving, bottom-of-the-ninth-inning throw from second baseman Miguel Rojas to Will Smith at the plate that barely — just barely — achieved a force out on Kiner-Falefa.

During the live broadcast, and for months following the World Series, it was widely believed that Smith's foot had come off the plate and then re-touched the plate just before Kiner-Falefa's foot touched the plate.

However, a new, official report from MLB asserts that, upon further review, Smith's foot was touching the plate when the baseball first hit his glove, at which point Kiner-Falefa was still approximately three feet away from home plate.

In other words, the iconic replay footage of Smith "re-touching" home plate with Kiner-Falefa's foot less than a centimeter away from the plate ... has been rendered completely irrelevant. Kiner-Falefa was already out at that point, according to MLB.

MLB rules that the Will Smith-Isiah Kiner-Falefa play wasn't as close as we thought

Whether or not Smith actually removed his foot from home plate no longer matters. He was touching home plate when he first received the throw from Rojas, according to MLB's updated report.

For what it's worth, Smith has always denied that his foot left home plate. He recently reiterated this assertion at the World Baseball Classic practice sessions, saying once again that he never felt his foot come off the plate in the legendary Game 7 moment.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider was still thinking about the play all offseason (how could he not be?), saying at Winter Meetings that he's watched the replay 3,000 times, and that Smith's foot has looked off the plate in 1,500 of those viewings.

Schneider's point here was that, in his eyes, this truly was a 50/50 play that could have gone either way. Such an assessment leaves open the possibility that Kiner-Falefa could have been rightfully ruled safe, but wasn't due to umpire subjectivity.

The MLB's newest ruling shoots down that theory completely, and in doing so, vindicates Smith and the Dodgers.

Nonetheless, this was a bang-bang play that will live on forever in MLB lore. It's also a play that put Kiner-Falefa in some hot water following the World Series, with many fans suggesting that a bigger lead — or the decision to run through home plate rather than slide — would have resulted in IKF beating the throw and winning the World Series for Toronto.

Kiner-Falefa has since pushed back on such claims, and in his defense, it's been revealed that his "short" lead was a direct result of instructions from Toronto's coaching staff. And what about the decision to slide? IKF might have to live with that, but then again, the new ruling indicating that Kiner-Falefa was three feet away from the plate when he was out suggests that even running through home wouldn't have saved him.

Smith, meanwhile, can finally put the play behind him (as if a World Series trophy hadn't already done that) and move forward into the 2026 regular season with Dodgers bragging rights — he was the last member of LA's roster standing at the WBC due to Team Japan's earlier-than-expected exit.