Thursday, June 3, 2010

History stolen


Last night, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was just one out away from pitching the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history and third in the last month. However, when Cleveland's Jason Donald grounded to first baseman Miguel Cabrera, and Galarraga covered first base, umpire Jim Joyce made the second-worst call in baseball history. Although Galarraga had the ball and his foot on first base a good half-step ahead of Donald's, Joyce called Donald "safe," and the perfect game and no-hitter both were spoiled.
For those who don't know baseball terminology: a no-hitter simply means that a pitcher allows no hits by the opposing team, while the other team might have base runners by way of walks or errors. Whereas a perfect game is where a pitcher gets all 27 outs recorded without allowing a single base runner (nine innings in a game, three outs per inning equals 27).
Already this season, Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics and Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies recorded perfect games, the first time two pitchers recorded the second-most-rare feat (only an unassisted triple play is more rare) in the same season since 1880, when the perfect game became an official statistic. Never has there been three perfect games in a season.
To some, Galarraga has thrown a 28-out perfect game and were calling for MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to reverse Joyce's call to "out" and award the perfect game. Just within the last hour of when I'm writing this, Selig released a statement saying he would not reverse the call.
And he shouldn't.
Because safe/out is a judgment call in baseball, though there are rulebook entries on how a batter or runner is safe or out, it isn't subject to protests or replay reviews. In fact, the only time a play is reviewed by replay is whether a ball is a home run or not. However, those people are now clammoring for replay to be expanded for obvious safe/out calls.
Still, the play was called incorrectly, and I applaud Joyce for admitting after the fact that he was wrong (usually umpires stick with their call even when proven wrong by replay) and appologized to Galarraga in the Tiger clubhouse after the game.
Talking with reporters in the umpires' room after the game, Joyce said, "It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it."
Damn right you did! The only worse call in baseball was during gave five of the 1985 World Series. Dom Denkinger, who by the way lives in Waterloo, botched what would have been the final out of the game that would have clinched the championship for the St. Louis Cardinals. As a result, the Kansas City Royals remained in that game, eventually forced game seven and won.
The main difference between the two calls is that Denkinger's gaffe helped decide the championship, while Joyce's was simply the 27th out of a regular-season perfect game and had very little impact on the final outcome.
Although the call was aggregious last night, I think the worst thing that can be done to Joyce is a fine or suspension, and the call was rightly upheld, or at least not changed after the fact. It only opens up a big can of worms that baseball can't afford to open.