Wednesday night, I watched the Detroit-Cleveland baseball game from first pitch to last. I grew up 45 minutes from the front door of Tiger Stadium while my wife spent much of her developing years at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium with her favorite uncle. We are a mixed marriage — one Tigers fan, one Indians fan.
And even she thought Armando Galarraga got jerked over.
Everybody knows the story by now. Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game on Wednesday night when first base umpire Jim Joyce completely blew an out call on what should have been the final out of a 27-up, 27-out game. There was absolutely no question, even before a thousand replays were shown, that Jason Donald was thrown out, first base-to-pitcher, by Miguel Cabrera with Galarraga covering. Joyce blew the call, plain and simple.
And to his credit, Joyce admitted it. He told reporters after the game: “This isn’t ‘a’ call. This isn’t — This is — This is a history call and I kicked the shit out of it. And there’s nobody that feels worse than I do. I take pride in this job, and I kicked the shit out of it, and I took a perfect game away from that kid who worked his (butt) off all night.”
It was, perhaps, the worst call in baseball history (Huffington Post and the Big Lead called it “the worst call in sports history”), but at least Joyce took responsibility. I still think he should resign, but then again if you watch as much baseball as I do, you’ve long ago come to the conclusion that umpiring is a really, really imperfect science and over the course of a week, there are dozens of bad calls. In fact, the strike zone is a joke. The boys in blue (or is it black now?) make that thing up as they go along.
So I certainly didn’t disagree when commissioner Bud Selig said yesterday that he wouldn’t overturn the call even though it was the worst call in baseball history. I also agreed with Selig when he said he would take a close look at replay and umpiring.
Instituting replay is a simple task. Each manager gets one flag per game. Use it wisely. Balls and strikes are out (computers should call balls and strikes anyway). Jim Leyland could have had a chance to fix the problem from the dugout last night simply with the opportunity to go to the replay — a replay that was available to everyone watching that game in less than four seconds.
Replay would have saved Jim Joyce his torment (and a very funny website called www.firejimjoyce.com) and also give a journeyman starter like Armando Galarraga a real day in the sun (yeah, the Corvette was nice, but if I know the Tigers organization, owner Mike Ilitch would have bought Armando the entire Chevy line if he had “perfect game” on his resume).
Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park everybody kissed and made up, but St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa — as he often does — had the best take on the entire mess.
“I was thinking if the umpire says he made a mistake on replay, I’d call it a no-hitter, perfect game. Just scratch it,” La Russa said. “If I was Mr. Selig, in the best interest of the game. The guy got it and I’d give him his perfect game. But here again, I should just shut my mouth.”
Meanwhile, I have learned one important lesson from this incident: I vow to never again, never ever again, on the Shaw TV telecasts of Winnipeg Goldeyes baseball, to NEVER, EVER again criticize a Northern League umpire. From the horrendous umpiring done in the 2009 playoffs to Joyce’s blown call on Wednesday night, the arbiters in the majors are living proof that the guys in the Northern League are just as good as they are (or just as bad, whatever your point of view).
Fact is, the sad state of major league umpiring is a bigger problem for the game than steroids ever were.