Not that anyone cares...Armando Galaraga's perfect game
Anyone with a modicum of interest in sports has probably heard about what happened last night, June 2nd 2010. Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galaraga had recorded 26 of 27 outs without giving up a hit or walking a batter, and none of his teammates had made an error. Not even Austin Jackson, the rookie center fielder who made an absolutely ludicrous catch to record the first out of the 9th inning. With two out, Jason Donald his his weak grounder between first and second base. Miguel Cabrera fielded it and threw to Galaraga covering first. The ball slid in his glove a second, but it was settled and Galaraga's foot was cleanly on the bag before Donald got there. A perfect game, Galaraga and the Tigers forever etched into the history of baseball.
Only Jim Joyce, the first base umpire, blew the call and declared Donald safe. The play wasn't that close, and it's hard to understand how Joyce made that call. Even if it *was* close, with the Tigers up by three runs with two out in the 9th, you almost have to give the perfect game the tiebreaker and call the runner out. Maybe if it's still 1-0, you call him safe. But not here. Not when this was clearly an out.
Then three things happened:
- Galaraga just smiled in disbelief, and went back to the mount. Miguel Cabrera just put his hands on his head in disbelief, and then went back to his defensive spot. Jim Leyland came out and gave Joyce every bit of righteous anger that Leyland should have, and Joyce took it calmly. He could have easily made it about him (see also: West, Joe; Hernandez, Angel), but knowing what just happened he just let it go.
- Galaraga iced the 28th batter easily.
- Joyce again took all of the vitriol from the Tigers silently, and then went directly to the umpires 'locker room' and asked to see the replay. He saw right away that he blew the call, and answered any question asking about it honestly. He sought out Galaraga and admitted he blew the call, apologized, and walked away.
Everyone involved with this miscarrige of justice acted with class, like we hope and expect professional athletes do. That's the second biggest surprise of the night, sadly.
I wish I could say the same about the fans, myself included. I made a joke about "needing" the Ligues (the two asshats that drunkenly race onto the field and pummeled first base coach Tom Gamboa) , which was pretty classless. That said, Jim Joyce's *father* said he got death threats via phone. Seriously? Come on, people.
People are calling for Joyce to be fired or suspended, which is laughable. Maybe if he'd shouted back at Leyland, or ejected someone. But he didn't. He admitted he screwed up and apologized. If this call had happened in the 3rd inning, we wouldn't be outraged. We'd be saying "Man, if that call had been made..." We've all made mistakes at our jobs, and how many of us have demanded we be suspended or fired? In the grand scheme of thigs, this doesn't impact anything but history books and emotions. The Tigers still won, Galaraga didn't give up a run. Perfect games don't count as extra wins, or tiebreakers.
What I think MLB should do is the obvious. Rescind the hit because of umpire error and award the perfect game. It's not a slippery slope, for a few reasons: It's a unique situation. First, it was the 27th out. It ends the game. Second, Galaraga got the next batter out. There's no argument to be made that this could have changed the outcome of the game. The only "negative" would be Jason Donald losing a hit, and I bet if you'd ask him he'd be okay with that. Official scorers have the power to go to replay and change decisions, which can have just as much impact on this kind of "only matters in the history book" events. Errorless streaks, Hitting streaks, even ruling an error as a hit or a hit as an error can impact no-hitters (Kerry Wood, I'm looking at you).
This is an opportunity for MLB to make a decision that's a win-win PR play, without anyone getting hurt. Save me all the weak bullshit pablum about "the human element". Anyone who advocates for a system that is proven to result in more errors just for nostalgia's sake is a dope.
Posted via web from Dann's posterous