Posted on 06/03/2010 1:08:24 PM PDT by presidio9
Commissioner Bud Selig won't reverse an umpire's admitted blown call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. Selig said Thursday that Major League Baseball will look at expanded replay and umpiring, but didn't specifically address umpire Jim Joyce's botched call Wednesday night.
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.
Joyce said he erred on what would've been the final out in Detroit, where the Tigers beat Cleveland 3-0. The umpire personally apologized to Galarraga and hugged him after the game, then took the field at Comerica Park on Thursday in tears.
Detroit general manager Dave Dombrowski had said the team wouldn't ask MLB to overturn the call. The mistake denied Galarraga the 21st perfect game in history, and the first for the Tigers.
Joyce ruled Cleveland's Jason Donald safe at first base, but later said he got it wrong. Even in the sports world, where bad calls are part of the mix, this one reached way beyond the lines: the perfect game that wasn't.
Galarraga, who was barely known outside of Detroit before this week, and Joyce, whose career had flourished in relative anonymity, remained trending topics on Twitter more than 12 hours after the game ended. At least one anti-Joyce Facebook page popped up and
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Nor should he.
You can’t change a call after the game is over for gosh sakes!
It doesn’t matter. This game is more historic, and a much bigger story, as an “(im)perfecto.”
They did it in *Pine tar gate*.
It would hurt no one to have changed it and righted a significant mistake.
Never apologize, never explain.
That would have created a nightmare for any dubious calls made during the playoffs.
The pine tar incident did not involve a decision based on judgment; it was a decison based on the application of a rule for which no judgment by the ump was required.
Like I maintained during the debate about Instant Replay in football -
Bad calls , as long as we have human beings officiating, are part of the environment of the game - as much as weather, or field condition, or fans in the left-field bleachers with beer bottles...
(BTW, I also rail against domed stadia, given an opening... )
I find it strange that, knowing the truth, the Commissioner will pretend that the truth did not happen, and deny a pitcher a perfect game. What are you supposed to do, in the instance that you actually have the truth -- put an asterisk next to the pitcher's name about what should have happened, when you have the power to actually correct an error?
He then got overruled.
There’s no “WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” in Baseball...
Galaragga and umpire Joyce have shown class here. Galagragga was very generous with his forgiveness and Joyce was quick to apologize.
Folks, humans screw up. A game is a game. Forgiveness and contrition are the real deal.
These two couldn’t have been more mature, open, honest, and caring.
Human frailty, is as much a part of baseball as the perfect game. Galaragga will go down in history as the guy whose perfect game was stolen. His name would have been raised in conjunction with the perfect game, and then forgotten by most people.
His name will always remain on our lips now (we will always know what he earned), and the class with which he met this challenge, and the class with which Joyce acknowledged his mistake and apologized, was as incredible and more rare than the triple play.
Play ball!
Do you remember the game?
If “ifs and buts” were peanuts and nuts, we would have a great party!
The biggest mistake Jim Joyce made here was admitting he blew the call. The play is what the umpire says it is when he sees it. Anything after that is irrelevant. Baseball managed to survive for 100 years before instant replays. Replays spaw barrroom debates, but they are otherwise irrelevant.
Domed stadia suck.
Umpires train themselves to watch the feet while listening for the ball to hit the glove.
In this case, however, the toss was to a pitcher covering first base, and the ball wasn’t thrown far; so the umpire might have been watching the ball.
I woudd really like to see a video that doesn’t stop as the runner hits the bag. That pitcher’s foot might be coming up, not down.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8616789
It’s not coming up. It’s really inexplicable. It’s not even a close play. But, as the pitcher said, people make mistakes. It’s just weird.
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