It was a fairly routine 3-1 groundout. A ball hit between first and second base, first baseman fields it, throws to the pitcher covering first, runner is out by a half step.
Except he was called safe. Most of the time, that’s not a big deal. It’s baseball, umpires miss calls from time to time.
But this was a huge deal on Wednesday night. The call happened to come with two outs in the ninth inning of a perfect game. Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was ready to begin celebrating when Cleveland’s Jason Donald was ruled safe on a bang-bang play at first.
Watching the replay on TV, even Donald looked as if he couldn’t believe he was called safe. He hustled hard all the way down the line trying to beat the throw, but his reaction after the play tells me he knew he was out and felt bad Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game.
But umpire Jim Joyce didn’t see that replay until after the game, because baseball’s limited use of instant replay doesn’t cover close plays at first base in the last inning of a perfect game.
In every other major pro sport, a play of that magnitude would be reviewed. Not in baseball, though. NBA refs will stop a game to review whether a guy’s foot was on the 3-point line on a shot attempt in the second quarter. NFL coaches can throw the red flag and ask refs to review just about any play at any point during a game. NHL refs routinely stop a game to look at a goal to see if the puck actually crossed the goal line.
You know what all those examples have in common? The correct call eventually is made.
Yeah, stopping the game takes a little fun out of the moment of a goal, 3-pointer, touchdown catch or perfect game. But getting a call wrong takes all the fun out of it. I doubt David Tyree or Santonio Holmes minded too much when refs spent a few minutes taking a closer look at their amazing Super Bowl catches.
Joyce owned up to his screw-up after the game, saying, “It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (expletive) out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game.”
Joyce sounded like he was about to cry when he made those comments. Think he’s in favor of expanding instant replay this morning?
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Man, this is all anyone talked about today. For anyone who thinks the call should be overturned, and the pitcher given his perfect game, that's ludicrous.
Baseball purists love the fact that there is a human element to the officiating. And now that technology has caught up with the game, we can see that more and more mistakes are made.
I do agree that this incident will lead into the discussion of instant replay. But MLB needs to be careful when it comes to what exactly is up for review. If every ball and strike call is reviewed, games will take five hours to complete.
A co-worker and myself were talking about it today, and MLB should follow the football model. Teams get one review per game, and if that review is successful, they get one more. That's it. End of story.
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