Nobody's Perfect

Two nights ago, umpire Jim Joyce blew a call at first base. No big deal, right? It happens. The baseball purists like myself will argue that human error always has been and always should be part of the game. We argue with those who want to institute video replay into our tradition-filled sport. But this blown call is a bit different than any other. Armando Galarraga of the Tigers had sat down 26 Cleveland Indians in a row. One batter away from a perfect game, he gets Cleveland's Jason Donald to roll a grounder between first and second. First baseman Miguel Cabrera fields it and throws on to Galarraga who was covering the bag. Donald is out, game over, perfect game. But to quote myself watching the replay on Sportscenter, fully expecting to see that this kid threw a perfecto, "Holy shit, he called him safe." So my real point of this is the dilemma that I have putting myself in the umpire's shoes. There is an old baseball saying that says sometimes there is a difference between the right call and the proper call. The right call in this case doesn't matter because he got it wrong, but let's say Donald did beat Galarraga to the bag by a split second. Do you call him safe? I mean Donald hustled up the line hard. His job was to break up that perfect game, so do you take that away from him? The right call is safe. But, in my opinion, I think the proper call is out. There are certain situations where you give a player the benefit of the doubt when you are the umpire. This was a situation where even if you think he was safe, you call him out. And please don't think I'm immoral, umpires do this all the time. An infielder will make a spectacular diving stab, get up and throw to first and in a bang-bang instance the runner beats it. But sometimes when a fielder makes a play like that, he gets the benefit of the doubt. It's strictly situational. If this play at first happened in the 3rd inning, then feel free to call him safe. But in my opinion, the umpire needs to know the magnitude of the situation. There have been millions of infield singles in baseball history, but only 20 perfect games. Joyce single-handedly took a perfect game away from a Armando Galarraga.

"How could that idiot call him safe." Well, that's easy. He called him safe because he genuinely thought the runner beat the pitcher to the bag. So here comes the replay talk. Baseball is a sport like no other as far as action. I have always said, you're either a baseball fan or you aren't, there's no in between. People hate it because it's "boring". And as much as I hate to admit it, it's the majority of people who think this. Sorry purists, I think we're in the minority. So how do you take a slow game and add replay? You can't use it on every bang-bang call because there are so many. It would be like challenging the spot on every play of a football game. Guys like me will tell you that replay should not exist in baseball, but a situation like this comes around and makes it hard to argue. So here is my argument. Watch baseball and you will see that these guys get 99% of those calls right. They are major league umpires for a reason, they are very very good at it. This is a freak situation. It is going to happen when an umpire misses a call, it just usually isn't the biggest call of his, or a pitcher's career. I have heard people say that you give a team one challenge per game. Well this play is on the 27th out of the game, even if they had a challenge they probably would have used it by then. Even after a history-changing call, I am still completely against instant replay in baseball.

Finally, I wanted to give some credit to those involved. Jim Joyce made what he thought was the right call. He watched the replay and saw that he blew it. He then did what most umpires would never dream of doing, and perhaps the most admirable and professional thing I have ever seen. He went to the Tigers clubhouse where, at the moment he was public enemy number one, and apologized. He quoted that "Galarraga had every right to be in his face, but he didn't say a word." He's right, not a word. Armanda Galarraga handled the most heart-breaking moment of his career with grace that you do not see in sports. A moment when most of us would have at least argued, if not exploded and gotten tossed, he did none of that. He sucked it up, and went and got the last out. And in yesterday's game, with Joyce behind the plate, Galarraga took the lineup card out during pre-game and patted Joyce on the back. It brought tears to Joyce's eyes. Both of these men have turned this bad situation into a little bit of a warmer story, strictly out of the professionalism and respect they have showed each other. This is a perfect lesson in "nobody's perfect". I just hope next time, Jim Joyce makes the proper call.