In a fairly unsurprising move, Bud Selig has announced that he will not in fact reverse the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce that cost Armando Galarraga the 21st perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball.
Selig did say “that Major League Baseball will look at expanded replay and umpiring”. This is an improvement over the current system in place, but it doesn’t change the fact that a young pitcher has been robbed of baseball immortality.
We have been spoiled with three perfect games over the past year and two in the last month. The recent successes of Mark Buerhle, Dallas Braden, and Roy Halladay might make the rarity of a Perfect Game a little less legendary than we once thought.
We can often forget that there was a 34 year gap between perfect games at one point and the last perfect game before Buerhle’s gem, was back in 2004, thrown by Randy Johnson.
Some of us could be old men before we see another piece of perfection.
Is that a reason to reverse the call? No, but it puts into perspective the magnitude of Galarraga’s accomplisment.
Or Joyce’s blunder.
I didn’t expect Selig to reverse the call. The man is a spineless commissioner who makes far too much money. The man’s legacy will largely be made up of things he didn’t do, rather than his own accomplishments.
Selig largely did nothing to punish the players who juiced up to win World Series, earned fat paychecks, and stole our love and loyalty, which was then spoiled due to events such as the BALCO scandal and the Mitchell report.
I don’t expect Selig to be as bold as to reinstate Pete Rose, but for God’s sake, do something to earn your $18 million a year.
None of us are really ready to call this the worst call of all time, but it very well may be. The perfect game is one of baseball’s elite accomplishments and Galarraga was denied his place in history by an admitted botched call.
Overturned calls are rare and don’t really happen that often.
Perfect games are also rare.
There has never been precedent for a situation like this, which is precisely why Selig should step in and and reverse this mistake.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Bud Selig has the power to do the right thing.
He just doesn’t really seem to care.
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