As I'm sure all of you know, Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was robbed of a perfect game on a blown call from umpire Jim Joyce. There have been talks that Bud Selig would reverse the call and send Galarraga's name to the Hall of Fame and etch him in baseball history forever. However, we found out yesterday that he was going to do no such thing.
In my opinion, that is inacceptable.
First of all, there was absolutely no doubt about the perfect game. The blown call was on the last out of the game, so if the call was made correct, the game is over right there and there is nothing else to question.
Second, there is no question that it was indeed an out. Instant replays showed that the runner was out by half a step, and no one can argue that.
Knowing those two things, I see absolutely no harm in reversing the call. The only negative outcome it would have would be taking a hit away from Jason Donald, Indians shortstop. While I can't say for sure, I don't think Donald would put up any argument if they took the hit away from him. I also don't believe the Cleveland Indians or anyone else would have any reason to complain about the change.
Baseball's most exciting plays happen in milliseconds, every pitch and swing of the bat happens at amazing speeds. The play at first was bang bang, and you really cannot put all the blame on the umpire. As Galarraga has said, nobody is perfect. When you put the pressure of making all these calls that happen in such little increments of time on one person, you are bound to have mistakes made. How can baseball let one of the most hallowed and impressive achievements in the game be negated by a common human error. While this starts a separate argument about if baseball should institute instant replay, I think it makes the case for Galarraga's perfecto as well.
While overturning the call now and giving Galarraga his perfect game would not justify the mistake, I think it needs to be done. Galarraga will not have the memory of the excitement and celebration with his teammates that the other 20 pitchers have, but at least he will not be robbed of the chance to be remembered forever and have his name in the Hall of Fame. There is no reason that a mistake that could have been made by anybody should rob this man of probably his greatest achievement in his lifetime.
He did get a free shiny 2010 red Corvette from Chevrolet for his efforts, so it's not all bad for Armando.