Jim Joyce may have made the worst call in the history of baseball on Wednesday night, and that is an understatement. Detroit's Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game Wednesday, only to have Jim Joyce take that away from him because of a terrible call. With two outs in the ninth inning, Cleveland's Jason Donald hit a slow roller to Miguel Cabrera, who threw it to Galarraga who in turn touched the base a step and a half in front of Donald. Somehow though Donald was called safe on the play, and Galarraga only ended up with a complete game shutout instead of the 21st perfect game in MLB history, which would have been the third this season.You have to give all the credit in the world though to Galarraga, as he didn't freak out after the horrendous call. He just said you have to be kidding me, and recorded the last out of the game. After the game he talked about what pitches were working for him, and how his fielders played very well. I can't say I would have reacted the same way he did.
But it shouldn't have had to be that way, because the MLB needs some sort of instant replay for reasons just like this one. All humans make mistakes, but when they are this bad there has to be rectification. I think replay works well for the NFL, as well as in the NBA for buzzer beaters. Baseball only uses instant replay for home runs, but after what happened Wednesday night it needs to be used more often. I know baseball games are long already, but it just isn't fair for these players to put everything they have into a game and get screwed over by a bad call. How hard can it be to pay another umpire to sit in a booth, and figure out what the right call is. You see too many times when managers come out to argue a call which delays the game, why not instead delay the game for a productive reason?
I just can't agree when a guy works his ass off for 8 2/3 innings, only to have everything he did just be another game. When players go down in history they earn what they did. Wednesday night Armando Galarraga will go down in history for having a perfect game taken away from him on just an awful call. It just seems that this season you see a lot more players getting thrown out, and umpires are missing more and more calls. I'm I saying that I don't respect what umpires do, no, what I'm saying is they shouldn't decide who wins the game. People make mistakes, so having a replay wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.
Also if you didn't see the ninth inning of this game you have to try and watch it. Austin Jackson made an awesome catch for the first out in the inning. So congratulations to Armando Galarraga for throwing a perfect game in his career, even if it never goes down in the record book. Jim Joyce is a great umpire, but Wednesday night he made a bad call that he will feel bad about forever.
(Sidenote - In Game 3 of the NHL finals the Flyers second goal wasn't counted until it was reviewed upstairs. Not saying that I'm always right, but this just helps my point even more. Sports today are just getting too fast for the human eye.)
Winks Edit: Well said, Gweeds, but I think you might even have to be more harsh to Jim Joyce. If Joyce felt bad about his call, then he should have reversed it when he had the chance. I have no idea what compelled this guy to call the runner safe when he was clearly not, but I think overall umpires are trying to be the story instead of be in the background. When we know the umpires by name, that's a bad thing, and I've heard of Jim Joyce before which means that somewhere prior he already made a name for himself. Keep your face under the mask and don't make me learn your name, umpires. And don't screw kids out of perfect games because you are too proud to admit an error in the moment. I don't care what Joyce said after the game, that call was unforgivable.)
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