Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga pitched an amazing game on Wednesday night. He struck out only three Indians in nine innings, but he was efficient, throwing just 88 pitches on the night and walking none. Thanks to Jim Joyce, he was not perfect.
Randy Booth at Over The Monster appreciates the situation and what went wrong but he believes the decision shouldn’t be updated to reflect a perfect game…because it wasn’t.
Baseball is not perfect and no one has ever claimed that it is. Joyce made a mistake, but that’s what makes baseball great: players, coaches, fans and — a lot of the time — umpires just make the wrong moves. They might read a signal wrong and get thrown out trying to steal second. Or they might send in a left-handed pinch-hitter that is 0 for 37 lifetime against the pitcher. Or they might reach over the barrier and grab a ball they shouldn’t have touched. Or they might just blow a perfect game.
But that is baseball. And it’s not that we should “learn to live with it.” It’s that we have always been living with it and for such a long time. Baseball is not a new sport and making mistakes in baseball is not foreign. In every game it happens. This time it was just on a very big stage with many eyes peering down.
If Selig reverses the call and gives Galarraga the 21st complete game in baseball history, it is like taking a giant eraser to baseball history. It’s also like taking a lighter to the baseball rulebook.