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June 3, 2010
Last night could have been a good night for a lot of people.
It could have been a good night, obviously, for Armando Galarraga. Aside from the awful call with two out in the ninth, he would have become only the twentieth twenty-first pitcher in MLB history to have thrown a perfect game.*
It could have been a good night for first base umpire Jim Joyce. He should have slept soundly, knowing that he witnessed history. Instead, he caused history—nothing an umpire ever wants—and he will be remembered now not for the hundreds of thousands of calls he’s gotten right in his career, but for this one that he’s gotten wrong.
It could have been a good night for the thousands of fans in Detroit and the hundreds of thousands watching on TV who witnessed something special, only to be told that it wasn’t.
It could have been a good night for Ken Griffey Jr., whose retirement announcement was overshadowed by a farce of a story. One of the greatest hitters of our generation went out like a lamb on the back pages of the sports section.
But instead, it was a lousy night for everyone.
The thing that really sticks in my craw (yes, I have a craw) is that this didn’t need to happen. We have these things called cameras that record what happens on the field. We have this thing called instant replay that can play back what happens. We already have instant replay as a part of the game: umpires are allowed to go look at a replay to make sure they have the call right.
Except, of course, that Bud Selig only allows the umpires to look at instant replay on home run boundary calls—not safe/out calls. So Jim Joyce’s lousy call will stand in infamy.
I don’t know if I’m going to write one of these “confession” pieces that we’ve been doing on WFNY the last few weeks, but something many of you know about me is that I was raised in St. Louis, and I remain a big Cardinals fan to this day. In the 1985 World Series, Don Denkinger blew a call that gave the Royals a game the Cardinals should have won. I was four. And I felt cheated.
And now twenty five years later, I feel cheated again, from a whole new perspective. I don’t want to see my team get shut out or no-hit or completely owned, but I understand that last night was bigger than my rooting interests. Last night should have been about so much more than just another Indians’ loss.
But now last night is about two things: human fallibility and the need for instant replay.
There are no longer any reasons to argue against instant replay, but let’s examine them anyway. I hear all the time that we will lose the human element. After last night, we saw demonstrable evidence that the human element misses calls. Jim Joyce is, by all accounts, a good guy—he took full responsibility for blowing the call and seems really upset about what happened last night. Do you think he wants the human element of his wrongness highlighted? Do you want to see more bad calls to maintain the game’s humanity? I watch baseball because I love the stories it generates, but rarely do I love the stories of someone being flat-out wrong. Those stories typically make me sad or angry.
There’s also the argument that instant replay will slow the game down. Well, last night’s game ended at 8:52 PM. It lasted just a hair over an hour and a half, and the sun was still out when I took my dog outside. The Yankees and Red Sox are averaging nearly four hours per game. Instant replay won’t make games considerably longer; bad pitchers and silly arguments between umpire and manager and good hitters and beer commercials make games longer. Attack the real problems with game-times getting out of hand, not imaginary ones.
Some think that the umpires don’t want instant replay. Ask Don Denkinger if he’s glad he got that call wrong in 1985. After last night’s shammockery™, Denkinger said publicly that replay rules need to be expanded. Or just ask Jim Joyce if he wants to be remembered for a failure. Instant replay will allow these guys to get the call right, and I believe that’s what they want to do.
Last night was the final straw. MLB will expand replay going forward, and that can only be a good thing. Why? Because after last night, we saw how imperfect the current system is. Umpires aren’t perfect and the rules aren’t perfect and Bud Selig isn’t perfect, and as a result, Galarraga wasn’t perfect. Except that he was.
So for all those fans out there who wanted to see something special last night but feel cheated, I have only this to offer: you did see something special. You saw the play that expanded instant replay in Major League Baseball. Book it.
*Of course, two of those twenty perfect games happened five days apart in 1880, when the pitchers were supposed to throw underhand, it took eight balls to walk a batter and the mound was fifty feet from home plate. So is that twenty perfect games or eighteen? Who knows?
38 Comments
Not only will I BOOK IT, I will also OBSERVE while I BOOK IT!
David Huff would be dead though if he had been 50 feet from home plate when he got hit with that comebacker.
Otherwise those 1880 games sound pretty chill.
I still throw underhand
By the way, props to Joyce for that fantastic mustache.. Hopefully he starts a foo-man-choo trend and people recognize the importance of great facial hair.
If Carlos Santana was in the game, he would have gotten a hit.
did OF’s wear gloves in 1880?
My buddy just made a fantastic point: “no matter how unlikely this scenario is, but what would have happened if after that blown call last night, the indians had rattled off four runs and won the game? would they examine the call then, and change those runs? change the actualy outcome of the game?”
I feel bad for Galarraga. I feel worse for Joyce. I am for instant replay. But reversing that call and changing it to a perfect game is absolutely, completely wrong.
Cmon Selig, just reverse the call. Every goes home happy except the crotchety old tradionalists.
JNeids… This is a once in a lifetime situation, that deserves a stand-alone ruling from Selig. He should make it clear that this reversal will set no precedent for the future. Its simply the right thing to do.
this is going to kill that poor guy’s batting average
/revolt!!!
If you want to award him an “Honorary Perfect Game,” sobeit. But a “stand-alone ruling…that will set no precedent for the future???” That is as unlikely as the situation I described. It’s over and done with, period. Just like Lebron’s 50-point trip-dub – you can’t take back what has already happened. (except technical fouls in critical playoff games…)
What if Donald was safe by half a step, but the ump called him out? Would we go back today and take AWAY the perfect game?
JNeids is making sense; reckon with it.
When I played Baseball there were often calls that went against me (including two blown no-hitters, never threw good enough for a perfect), but that was part of the game. I hate the fact that we are using technology to determine the exact timing of things, as that just annoys me. I think that the human element is the most interesting aspect of sports, and that is what I loved.
When I play hockey, I like that the linesmen don’t review offsides, that the refs don’t replay goals (in the NHL they do, otherwise nope), and that they are just as falable as I am. It makes the game more entertaining, and lets me get into it more.
IF they add Instant Replay to more games, I am simply going to stop watching, like iI have for pro football. I don’t want ot see them sitting their doing math problems with computers, I want to see the players play, and the umps ump.
as an indians fan(living in detroit with tiger season tickets and at the game) i was rooting for the tribe to get a hit to break up the perfecto all the way to the end. but man did i feel bad for the tigers and their fans after that terrible call. at least the ump showed he was a class guy.
With replay, get ready to reverse all those “phantom tag the base” double plays that happen all the time.
“Just like Lebron’s 50-point trip-dub – you can’t take back what has already happened. (except technical fouls in critical playoff games…)”
But they did take back what already happened, two rebounds. Seems like this examples disproves your argument.
Barga, if the NHL used no replay, the Philadelphia-Chicago game wouldn’t have gone to overtime last night. There were a lot of “human elements” that happened in OT too, and I was glad for them.
The argument that “mistakes are good” doesn’t convince me, and I bet it doesn’t convince Jim Joyce or Galarraga either.
For the record though, I’m also against Selig doing some retro-active, weirdo proclamation thing to give Galarraga the perfect game. Just institute replay for these calls. That’ll do.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the mound didn’t really exist in 1880. The 50 foot mark designated the spot where the pitcher’s front foot could not cross. So, throwing underhand from about 55 feet (back foot) away, while the batter could call the ball high or low, and foul balls did not count as strikes…even with 8 balls, a perfect game under those circumstances is quite an accomplishment.
i vote to reverse the out call for this special circumstance.
i reject the corner case arguments about how this creates a dangerous precedent and anarchy in mlb.
‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’ in other words, let’s just do the right thing here today and not get tweaked by future imagined bizarre scenarios.
^^reverse the *safe call. *sigh*
It was only a matter of time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixKidAhVtW4
Highly recommend a book that came out last year by Bruce Weber, “As They See ‘Em.” Insider look at umpires, their attitudes, the skill set needed and how they get to the majors. You’ll never watch a baseball game the same way after reading it.
Joyce is one of the best in the world at what he does, he’s climbed over thousands of others to reach the majors and this is his living nightmare, as this mistake will publicly define an otherwise great career. His trip into the post-game clubhouse to apologize cuts against the grain of the culture of player/umpire separation, and makes it that much more admirable. Hard to believe Joe West would ever do that.
By the way, according to Weber, umpires generally SUPPORT instant replay. They may have issues as to how they perceive Selig forces things on them, but they absolutely want to get it right.
I meant to add that I still consider Lebron’s trip-dub to be legit in my mind, but I can see where that omission confuses my point. I never understand why calls are reversed the day after, especially when they have no bearing on the game.
There were apparently 2 blown calls last night, but I don’t hear anybody clamoring to reverse the first call which seemed to have more of a direct impact on the outcome of the game than did the second. The second one, however, had an impact on history and is therefore more egregious? And I ask again, had the runner been safe but called out, would we take away his perfect game today?
jimkanicki
Did you just want to use the word hobgoblin?
It’s a delightful saying, but it seems rare to me to find a situation where checking against an inverse proposition would be foolish consistency. It seems a basic test.
Oh and as for technical/flagrant fouls being reversed the next day, I am actually ok with that soley for the reason that it may affect the future (suspensions).
To sum up my unnecessary amount of posts, if changing a call has no direct outcome on any game, one that has already ended or hasn’t yet started, I see no need to change it. But again, I have no problem with instant replay to get the call right at that moment.
One decision garnering an extremely specific instance does not set a precedence.
It is not a Supreme Court decision.
It is not an amendment to the Constitution.
It is not even your mom telling you to finish your homework before you go play.
It IS like a cat pushing a watermelon out of a lake
swig
“One decision garnering an extremely specific instance does not set a precedence.”
Says who?
can we start referring to the Pitcher in question as Galaga from now on?
Keep it up JNeids! I got your back. Your argument is 100% correct.
Stinkfist – you took my pic! Awesome comment, though. Agreed!!
Swig is right, it doesn’t set a precedence, but I think jimkanicki is wrong in saying it doesn’t set a precedent to change this game. What happens if there’s a blown call in the second inning that ends up being the only hit in an otherwise perfect game? Going back and changing that would change the entire course of the rest of the game. You can’t go back and fix it later, just like the NBA shouldn’t have taken the rebounds away from LeBron later (that was just stupid, they should just get better/more scorekeepers if stats are that important to them).
As for replay, I agree with people who say it would make the game drag on, but also think that the top priority should be to get the calls right. I think it should be like football, where each coach gets challenges – perhaps one a game, maybe a second if you get the first right. Reviewing everything questionable would make the game unwatchable; having the opportunity to review select plays would be a good idea.
The idea that reversing this call could be done without setting a precedent is ludicrous. Whether or not we consider it a precedent now is irrelevant, and it will remain that way until another large call is blown. It may take time, but eventually a record will be broken, or narrowly missed, and the parties involved will lobby for a change using this example. What happens when an MLB player is one stolen base away from the single-season record? If he gets called out on his last attempt but the tape shows he was safe, Bud Selig would have to change the call. Sure, it’s not exactly the same SPECIFIC situation, but it’s of similar importance.
I figured swig meant “precedent” and not “precedence” (as I have no idea what “precedence” would mean in this context).
@22 sammy davis jr would have gotten this call right with his glass eye. lmao. freaking hilarious.
Selig claims that he will not make a change to the safe call for reasons of tradition. But isn’t he the guy that allowed a tie in an All-Star game?
@Jon
I watched the game, and was somewhat intrigued by the replays as they were interesting goals. As a goalie, i might like it when it is not a goal but was called one, but am pissed when it was not called one and is. The thing is, we even out in terms of bad calls, and the element allows us to compare eras and teams to each other. It also allows us to not play the game on paper, as there are variables that can not be accounted for.
@Alan – very valid point regarding the 2002 All star game…
I also think “Galaga” deserves some serious credit for not whining, complaining, screaming, etc. He knew it was a bad call and he simply smiled, shook it off, and got back on the mound. He finished his gem of a game and didn’t give another human being the lashing we all expected. I’ll be quietly wishing him well for quite some time.
Too often we look to professional athletes to be role models for our youth. I think here’s a shining example of how to handle adversity with dignity and class.