Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Call

Everyone is putting in their two cents about Armando Galarraga so I suppose I will. Now there is no disagreement that the call was terrible and destroyed what would have been a historical moment for the Tigers and Galarraga.

But what I will say is that I am against overturning the call. Is overturning the call really going to accomplish anything. The record book will read differently but the story will always be the same: Jim Joyce blew the call on the 27 batter. What ever Selig tries to tell us and no matter how many times Joyce apologizes, the image of Galarraga stepping on first shortly followed by Jason Donald and Joyce's emphatic safe call will forever be in baseball lore.

The game wasn't perfect. There was on error and though it wasn't from a player the game is forever tainted whether Selig steps in or not.

All this incident might do is bring about instant replay more rapidly, but nothing that happens now will change anything for Galarraga or Joyce. Their places in history are firmly set.

4 comments:

Dan said...

Even though it's not officially a perfect game, everyone knows it was, and nothing can change that. In fact, it was better than perfect, 28 up, 28 down. It won't be in the record books, but 50 years from now will anyone remember Dallas Braden's perfect game? No! But this is a part of baseball lore forever just like the Pine Tar Game, The Shot Heard Round the World, and Boston's 0-3 Comeback. Baseball is full of quirks, mistakes, characters, and just plain weird stuff. I'm not saying that the ump shouldn't have gotten the call right, but there seems to be a campaign to cleanse the game of any idiosyncracies. We'll remember this one forever, more so than if this journeyman actually got his perfect game.

Joe said...

Umpires get about 98% of calls right it was just bad timing. I give Joyce a lot of credit for being accountable for his mistake. That doesn't happen a lot in life never mind baseball. BP could learn a lot from Jim Joyce.

I said it last week and I will say it again Bud Selig has done more damage to baseball than PEDs. Stop being so stubborn & use instant replay. The players want it. The imps want it. The fans want it. Just do it already.

Joe said...

And by imps I mean umps. Stupid autocorrect on the iPad.

Dennis said...

Just looking for an excuse to mention that you have an ipad, eh?

I say just get the call right, and that means instant replay. Put a fifth Ump upstairs and out of sight and just have him watch the game on a TV. If a call is wrong he buzzes down and tells the crew chief to change it.