This will be our last word on Armando Galarraga's imperfect perfect game, which means it will be THE last word on Armando Galarraga's imperfect perfect game. Everyone else can officially shut up and go home.
In today's New York Times sports section, the entire letters page was devoted to people venting about the injustice of not going back and retroactively calling the runner out at first, thereby giving Galarraga a perfect game. Bud Selig must make this right! The hell with the rules! Exactly one letter writer got it right: Galarraga was a victim of an imperfect call in an otherwise perfect game, and imperfection is, frankly, part of the game of baseball. Why else are perfect games so rare? Why else does baseball have an official statistic for "errors"?
If we're going to go back and correct egregiously blown calls, why stop at Jim Joyce? Why not go back to, say, 1985, and correct Don Denkinger's monumental screw-up in Game Six of the, not to put to fine a point on it, WORLD SERIES? Jorge Orta was out at first--everyone knows that--and the Cardinals should have won the series. We're sure the Kansas City Royals would be fine with that call being reversed.
Consider Harvey Haddix. In 1959, Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched a perfect game against the Milwaukee Braves--AND LOST! Haddix pitched not nine, not ten, not eleven, but TWELVE perfect innings--36-up, 36-down. His team, though, failed to score, and he finally (the bum!) gave up a run in the 13th inning to lose 1-0.
What's interesting about all the foofaraw about Galarraga's game is it's really all about the timing. What if Joyce makes the same call with, say, one out in the fourth? Galarraga and his teammates would be upset, the manager would have come out and complained, but the runner would have stayed on first. Imagine, then, that Galarraga had gone on to retire the next 17 batters. In retrospect, Galarraga would say that he had a perfect game except for that one blown call; Joyce may still have apologized, but he probably wouldn't be as broken up about it; and we suspect that there would not be as many people calling for an overturning of the verdict.
A thought experiment: Let's say the lords of baseball offer Galarraga and the Tigers (and, of course, the Cleveland Indians) a "do-over." When next the two teams meet, Galarraga can face the same batter. If he gets him out, it's a perfect game. If not, though, the game continues: In other words, the Indians get the chance to come back and, perhaps, win the game (unlikely, but not impossible: The Tigers were up 3-0; stranger things have happened). Do you think Galarraga would take that option? Or do you think he'd be perfectly happy with the one-hit shutout, the new car, and the knowledge--on everyone's part--that he truly did pitch a perfect game?
We suspect the latter.
Of COURSE "it's all in the timing"! EVERYTHING'S "all in the timing"! If Mark David Chapman had fired his gun 5 minutes earlier, John Lennon would have been singing "Michele" at the White House and we'd be mourning the death of Selma Fernblatt! Or, maybe, not so much. But a prefect game IS nothing BUT timing. And the differences are A) We have pictorial proof of the mis-call and B) The Umpire WHO MADE THE CALL said it was a mistake! But, hey, what can you expect from a sport (or at least its commissioner) that allows admitted drug takers/cheats to play, but STILL won't let Pete Rose, a REAL star, into the Hall of Fame!
ReplyDeleteI think if we went back in time and reversed every wrong sports call the world would be freakishly different.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous (Assuming this is the regular "Anonymous"): That was quite a passionate little diatribe. Since when do you care so much (i.e., at all) about baseball?
ReplyDeleteI could not care less about Baseball (whose.. which's?... only real attribute is that it's better than golf- but, then, so is waterboarding.)
ReplyDeleteWhat I DO care about is JUSTICE. JUSTICE. JUSTICE. (oh, and getting English Profs to avoid cliches) (Oh, and getting rid of Bud Selig who even LOOKS annoying).
I've never been nor will ever be involved in anything of this magnitude. I've been "robbed" of stuff during my almost 62 years and I got over it; sometimes only eventually. Shit happens! Because of instant replay and Joyce's confession, the whole world knows Galarraga really did pitch a perfect game and we can all settle back and mull this thing over and over ad nauseum. The BIG G got all the positive publicity and a brand new 'Vette (ya gotta love the folks at GM...what else could they do?)...I guess he made out OK...he's young, a great Pitcher and who knows...maybe he'll pitch another 27 perfectly under the scrutiny of an Ump that can friggin' see!!! Now, can we just drop it!! There are BP execs that need to feel our wrath!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsLt3iYiFbU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk3LYvav-Yc