On the Day After the Perfect Game Blown Call, Umpire Jim Joyce joins Pitcher Armando Galarraga at home plate to enter the Tiger's Thursday lineup and take their places together in history as two joined-at-the-soul-hips "Heartbreak Kids."
Cleveland Manager Manny Acta is among those who think that Commissioner Bud Selig did the right thing by refusing to reverse the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce that blew the perfect game of Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga on the 27th and potentially final out of Wednesday’s perfect game effort against the Indians. “If he had done something like that, he would have opened a whole can of worms,” said Acta. “If you change that, then the next thing we’d want him to do is change the play before that one.”
Acta had to be engaging in hyperbole in this instance. Does anyone remember the play before the big one at first base? And the one before that one was the Willie Mays-like catch by the center fielder. Does anyone really want to reverse that call?
As I told a friend of mine last night, I fully respect his support for the idea of leaving things as they stand in protection of the “sanctity” of baseball history, but that I no longer feel married to that point of view in situations where an obvious uncontested wrong call could be corrected for the sanctity of getting things rights for the record in baseball history.
Galarraga’s perfect game would have been the third in a month, but only the 21st in a history of baseball that goes back to 1869. How big is that? No one is arguing in favor of the original “safe” call that even umpire Joyce admirably now admits was a blown call. Unless Bud Selig had been willing to use his power “for the greater good of baseball” to make it right by reversing the call and ending the game on that play as the 3-1 put out it actually was, that record is now lost forever.
Please note: I would not support the reversal had the game continued from Joyce’s blown call and turned into an Indians’ victory, but that did not happen. The very next batter was retired to end the game as a Detroit win, the result that would have followed from the perfect game victory. I also would not have supported reversing the call if the safe/out verdict by instant replay had been in question – or if umpire Joyce had stuck steadfastly to his original call. Under either of those circumstances, or by reversing a Cleveland victory, we would have been tampering with history in ways that go far beyond correcting an obvious wrong.
Twenty years ago, I would not have even entertained this idea, but I’ve changed, for better or worse. Today I think getting the truth right, especially when it frees people from unwarranted pain, is far more important than standing on ceremony. As things now stand, two people, pitcher Galarraga and umpire Joyce are going to be forced to live with the full brunt of an untruth (the runner was safe for a “hit”) that alters each of their lives forever.
No one on earth can take away the pain that Wednesday’s game will be forever spoiled by what actually happened, but Commissioner Bud Selig does have the power to right a wrong that will especially punish the diligent conscience of umpire Joyce forever, if he does not.
The criminal justice system is fairer. If the courts send a man to prison for a crime he didn’t commit and that fact is later proven to be the case, what do they do? They let him out. They don’t just stand on the idea that “well, we’d like to let the man out, but sending him to prison already has happened so we’ll just have to leave him there,” nor do they buy into Acta’s implied concern that “we can’t free a single innocent man. If we let one free person out of jail, then all the wrongly imprisoned will want out too.”
Do the right thing in a timely way. Restore Armando Galarraga as the owner of baseball history’s 21st perfect game and free two men from a lifetime balance of pain over an outcome that could have been reversed for a greater good that far surpasses one man’s loss of a badly earned infield single.
Next up? Don’t wait for a clearer warning, baseball. Get your act together on how you want to use technology in the near future (as in – as soon as possible) to help avoid this sort of thing without slowing the game into a pool of total molasses.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
June 4, 2010 at 12:54 pm |
This is the first game in the history of baseball where a game had 28 outs. Amazing. This needs to go into the record book.
June 4, 2010 at 1:43 pm |
Selig should have corrected the error and brought peace of mind
to the mis-call.
June 4, 2010 at 3:29 pm |
If the commissioner doesn’t find it appropriate to use his authority to reverse the call in this situation, in what kind of situation would the authority ever be used? And if the authority was never intended to be used, why was the commissioner given the authority?
June 4, 2010 at 4:37 pm |
I agree with the no reversal. If Bud reverses, then he has to establish a set of criteria for future reversals. This is the case in the criminal law analogy cited. Not every error is reversible and those that are have 200 plus years of developed law to help judges tell the difference between harmless error and non-harmless error.
June 4, 2010 at 5:34 pm |
He actually had a chance to be a COMMISSIONER, but he wouldn’t “MAN UP”. Didn’t he make “Some Kind Of'” decision during an All Star Game?
By not MANNING UP, he made a WORSE Decision than Mr. Joyce.
Let the FIREWORKS begin…..Got to LOVE BASEBALL…..
June 5, 2010 at 8:06 pm |
I agree that Bud Selig should step up to the plate and use his defined power to reverse the umpire’s call. As Bill pointed out, this would restore integrity to the game and would provide peace of mind for both umpire and pitcher. I cannot see how letting the bad call stand when, as Bill wrote, it did not change the outcome of the game; letting it stand, however, diminishes the game we love. While I agree that technology should be brought into the game, this is an occasion when no technology is needed…..just good common sense and basic ethics.