Sorry, Not a Perfect Game

By now you've certainly seen this highlight and heard the story. Two days later I'm going to weigh in on a part of the story that I think is now a bigger story than the blown call. People everywhere are calling for Bud Selig, Commissioner of MLB, to officially change the call and award Armando Gallaraga the perfect game. Jennifer Granholm, Governor of Michigan, has officially issued him a perfect game, whatever that's worth. Selig isn't doing so, and I think it's the right call.

It doesn't take more than one look at the video to clearly see that the guy was out and Jim Joyce missed it. In any game the officiating crew has a small window of opportunity to huddle up and collectively change a call. When they didn't do that, it was too late, the perfect game was done. You can't go back, retroactively and award this kid the perfect game. If you had instant replay Jim Leland could have tossed a red flag instead of his hat and maybe something could be done, but we don't, so it wasn't.

When I saw the video for the first time I was totally blown away that Joyce missed such an easy call. For someone who spent most of his life playing baseball the thing that shocked me was that the unspoken rules didn't automatically kick in for Joyce. What are some unspoken rules? For one, a tag almost never actually as to be made in a non-force out situation. The umps obviously need you to swipe at the guy but if the ball beat the guy and the tag accidentally misses a body part, 99.9% of the time, you're still out. Ever noticed how first basemen always seem to be moving forward be the time the ball gets to them? If you watched hours of film you'd find that the first baseman is hardly ever still touching the base when he actually catches the ball. Tagging up on a fly ball? It's almost impossible to watch both the ball and the runner. So as long as you aren't obviously way too early, nobody's going to say anything. These are the kinds of things that are simply accepted in baseball. So when there's a tough ground ball for the last out of a potential perfect game and the first baseman busts his ass to get there and the pitcher busts his ass to cover first and the play is even remotely close (which this wasn't) you call the guy out. No one from the other team is going to come out and argue with you that their guy was safe and screw up the celebration of a perfect game by the other team. It's baseball after all. It's a gentleman's sport and their are gentlemanly understandings that just accepted.

So why can't the call be reversed and the perfect game be awarded retroactively? Because like them or hate them, the umpires hold the game together. There's a reason that close calls aren't made a best two out of three rock, paper, scissor show down at home plate. As a kid growing up you hate the umpires because at any level below professional baseball, they aren't very good. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize just how good the professional guys are at their jobs. I'm amazed by how many close calls that with 30 views of playback show that the ump on the field only needed to see it once in real time. That's amazing. Do they get every single call right? Obviously not. But the umpires are an integral part of the game and their job is 98% objective, 2% subjective and that's just the way it is. You're asking a human being to see something happening at a speed that most of us can't relate to and within less than a second make a decision on what they've just witnessed. Occasionally, the subjective nature takes over and they blow one. Unless you want cameras suspended from all different angles and a guy in the press box controlling the cameras and making the call, an occasional blown call, be it big or small, is what you'll get when your officials are people. Say you do go back and change the call giving the guy a perfect game, what happens to the next at bat? Does it get erased and we pretend like it never happened? Does some take an eraser to Gallaraga's pitch count? These are small things, but in baseball, they matter.

Gallaraga seems to be handling the whole thing with a lot of class. Even as the call was made he just sort of smirked. Me, I'd have been nose to nose with the guy in seconds. Gallaraga handled it correctly. The Tigers celebrated in the clubhouse after the game and treated Gallaraga as if he had just tossed a perfect game, not a 1 hitter. I think that might mean more for that organization and that young man than if he would have thrown the perfect game. When your teammates want to celebrate your accomplishment even though it didn't actually happen, that means something!

To be honest, I'd never heard of this kid before this story. And the controversy over this call has thrust him into the limelight more than if the call had been made correctly. Not that the time GMA spends talking about it really matters, but it does, in a way. In today's baseball record books there are cases where people want to see astrix put beside a guys name and there are accomplishments made that some people who probably rather not be remembered for. I think this is a situation where he'll be remembered for something he won't get credit for doing. I guarantee at the end of the season Gallaraga's 1 hitter will be mentioned in the same breath as the A's pitcher's (already forgot his name) perfect game. It's basically a technicality, but in baseball, there are plenty of those.