Armando Gallaraga's Imperfect Game

[JEBWrench]

In the event there are absolutely no baseball fans here, I apologize in advance.
Also, I apologize if someone else already posted this, I search barred for Armando Gallaraga and found nothing.

But as a lifelong Tigers fan, I have to say I'm stunned by what happened last night. Armando Gallaraga had thrown a perfect game (27 up, 27 down), and was robbed by a blatantly bad call by first-base umpire Jim Joyce (owner of an awesome mustache).

Gallaraga handled the event with incredible poise and grace (calmly going back to the mound and retiring the 28th batter he should never have had to face) but it still seems ridiculous that there was no way to get that call right.

I know the arguments against instant replay in baseball are many - they would make the game take much much longer already for starters - but it seems to me that this event may be what finally takes it to happen.

Should baseball adopt instant replays? Or even moreso, there have been calls to have the scoring of the game officially changed on account of the wildly blown call, which would not have changed the final score of the game.

Opinions? Claims for me to STFU?

 

[zenoaugustus]

Instant replay should be adopted, for the mere fact that these calls should be correct. Gallaraga didn't deserve that, but you know who really doesn't deserve any of it. Joyce. He will take the most shit over this for a bad call, that in a normal situation would've been overlooked. With instant replay in effect, he would be, off the hook.

 

[MellowFellow]

I was surprised that the ump called him safe he was out by more than a step. Usually in perfect games you see umpires giving the pitcher the benefit of the doubt on close plays, but that was not a close play in my opinion.

He got robbed of a perfect game.

 

[Toriver]

I'm a fan of one of Detroit's big rivals, the Minnesota Twins, and even I find that that was a bad call. Though I applaud the way that both Joyce and Gallarraga handled the situation after the fact. That was good sportsmanship on both their parts, some might even say classy. Joyce came clean, admitted his mistake and apologized, and Gallarraga accepted the apology gracefully without getting vengeful or angry about it. That's what good sportsmanship is all about. Heck, I would have been like Jim Leyland even if I was the opposing manager, out there arguing the call to try to get him a perfect game. It took a lot of guts for Gallarraga to handle it the way he did. I wonder if we could get him an "honorable mention" in the list of perfect game pitchers?

Anyway, all that aside, I've been arguing for more instant replay for years. If the umps are concerned about the legitimacy of their calls and control over the game, just tell them that it's a tool to help them make the right call more easily. You don't have to give managers the ability to challenge calls with instant replay like they do in the NFL. I'm sure the commissioner's office has somebody watching the game from some control booth. Let them or the umpire crew chief make the call to use replay when it's appropriate. It wouldn't be that hard to implement and would help the umpires, who seem so beleaguered with problems these days, to save some face when they make an error.

 

[Contextualizer]

I don't really care for watching sports at all (except for really awesome highlights), but this is just maddening.

WHAT

 

[JEBWrench]

I'm a fan of one of Detroit's big rivals, the Minnesota Twins, and even I find that that was a bad call. Though I applaud the way that both Joyce and Gallarraga handled the situation after the fact. That was good sportsmanship on both their parts, some might even say classy. Joyce came clean, admitted his mistake and apologized, and Gallarraga accepted the apology gracefully without getting vengeful or angry about it. That's what good sportsmanship is all about. Heck, I would have been like Jim Leyland even if I was the opposing manager, out there arguing the call to try to get him a perfect game. It took a lot of guts for Gallarraga to handle it the way he did. I wonder if we could get him an "honorable mention" in the list of perfect game pitchers?

Joyce even talked to Gallaraga afterwards, personally, in tears, because he knew how badly he messed up.

With the umpire himself admitting that he screwed up, I would think there's some grounds to be able to get the ruling changed, or at least unofficially noted.

As for how Gallaraga handled things, Joe Posnanski [http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/06/02/the-lesson-of-jim-joyce/#more-3517?eref=sihp] wrote a great article about it on his blog.

And this image sums it up:

 

[JEBWrench]

It's official, they won't be overturning the call.

A baseball official familiar with the decision confirmed to The Associated Press that the call was not being reversed. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because that element was not included in Selig's statement.

Looks like the Tigers will have to keep waiting for their 110 year-old franchise's first perfect game.