First of all, I’d like to congratulate Armando Galarraga on pitching a perfect game. Second of all, I’d like to state with regret that I didn’t watch the game. Nope, not a single inning. I was actually on my way home from coaching my kids Little League game when I turned the Tigers game on the radio. That one word buzzed my ears and caght my attention: perfect. The volume automatically went up, and the kids got sushed a bit. Thank goodness they were stuffing their faces with Dairy Queen at the time to keep them a little quieter than usual. I was just in time for the 9th inning. One out. Two outs. Yeah! Three outs!  Didn’t happen. The announcers were going a bit nuts, and couldn’t believe Galarraga’s luck. When they saw the reply themselves, they couldn’t believe the horrible call. Indian Jason Donald was safe, and Jim Joyce had just cost Galarraga his official perfect game. Not being able to see the play myself, I grapped the cell and made the call to my dad downstate, who I know would be watching. “How bad was it?”, I asked. “It wasn’t even close!”, he stated. Wasn’t even close. When I made it home and finally saw the replay myself, it occured to me that the announceers were right, my dad was right, the Tigers were right, and the 18,000 fans at Comerica were right. Donald was out by ‘a mile’. Joyce was the only human on Earth who thought the guy was safe. Even Donald new he was out, looking at the umpire in disbelief himself. A very classy move, I might add, not celebrating what he wrecked. Galarraga retired the next batter for his one-hit victory, that somehow seemed like a loss. Joyce got an ear-full from the Tiger players and manager Jim Leyland. Leyland, however, took the high road after the game and everyone had settled down a bit. Leyland talked about the human elemet of baseball, but let it be known that it WAS a perfect game. Galarraga knew in his heart, that what he accomplished, too, stating: “I got a perfect game. Maybe it’s not in the book, but I’m going to show my son the CD.” After watching the replay, Joyce even conceded that he blew the call stated that, well: “I blew the damn call.” He even apologized to Armando.

I admit, after the game I as fuming a bit myself. I almost couldn’t wait to get on the blogosphere and rip Joyce. After all, he deserves it, right? How can he think the guy was actually safe, when it was so obvious. If it was a close call, then it would be a different story. You could maybe understand. I also don’t believe in ‘giving’ the pitcher a call on a close play. If he really would have been safe, then so be it. What it comes down to, though, is that everyone can make a mistake. It’s too bad that Joyces blunder cost what would have been the first perfect game in Detroit Tigers’ history. This will be Joyce’s legacy now. I don’t think it’s right that someone changed his Wikipedia page to dub him ‘the worst ump in Major League Baseball’, or that they put him dead on June 2. That’s going a bit too far.  I think that part has been removed, though, but the conroversial call section was added. One of the worst things that could come of this, is that fans will be screaming for instant replay for just about everything now. It will surely make things interesting in the baseball world for the next few days, anyway. There-I’ve vented.

Photo courtesy of the AP