Everyone is talking about it. Which is why I wasn’t going to. Yet the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s imperfect perfect game arouses passions that go beyond baseball and sports and speak to our notions of perfection, fairness and tradition. That’s why I want to know what you think about the controversy.
Last Wednesday night in Detroit pitching against the Cleveland Indians, Armando Galarraga did what has only been done 20 times in the history of major league baseball (and, amazingly, twice this season): He retired 27 consecutive batters without a hit or a walk. Or appeared to. With two outs in the ninth—just one out from perfection and baseball immortality for Galarraga—Jason Donald, the Cleveland shortstop, hit a routine ball to the right side of the infield. First baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded it cleanly and threw to Galarraga covering first base. It was a close play but Galarraga clearly beat Donald to the bag and had his perfect game.
That is when fate—in the guise of umpire Jim Joyce—stepped in. “Safe!” he barked, and the home crowd hushed for an instant before exploding into boos and howls of righteous outrage. Joyce blew the call. It didn’t matter that the Tigers went on to win the game, and in the final analysis that’s what counts. Joyce had made what people were calling the worst call ever. He’d obliterated perfection. He destroyed history.
Replays bore out the obvious. A chagrined Joyce admitted his mistake. Donald agreed he was out at first. But replays, except for home run calls, are not binding in baseball. The call stood. The commissioner, Bud Selig, refused to intervene. To reverse an umpire’s call would be to reverse 160 years of tradition. No, you couldn’t do that, not even for a perfect game.
So, who’s right?
Traditionalists say that an umpire’s call is final; it’s part of the game, just like an out or a hit. Baseball is a game of imperfection. The best hitters fail 70 percent of the time. Pitchers routinely miss the strike zone. And umpires blow calls. On Wednesday night you can be assured that Joyce’s umpiring blunder was one of several made throughout the big leagues. Baseball is a most human game, and humans make mistakes. Can you even mention the words perfect and human in the same sentence?
Besides, what about all the other missed calls that altered baseball history? Do you go back and change them? Is that fair?
The reversalists (I made that word up, folks) think Selig is propagating a flagrant injustice. Why not, in the name of fairness, make an exception? Wouldn’t that be in the best interests of baseball? Wouldn’t that be easier to explain to your kids? You don’t have to change everything, just this one massive error, in the name of justice. It would give Galarraga his well-deserved perfecto and get Joyce off the hook, who will otherwise forever be vilified as the ump who blew The Call.
Those are the choices. Are you a Traditionalist or a Reversalist? Let me know. And remember, this is about more than just baseball.
