Baseball, Just Do The Right Thing

Sorry to dust off the ole' sportswriter hat, but I gotta get this off my chest.

Major League Baseball needs to rule that Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game. The guy threw a perfect game. From a technical standpoint, he did it. He got the 27th batter to put the ball in play and the fielder got to the bag with the ball in his glove before the runner. That, by rule, is an out.

Here's the thing - I get that you have to be consistent in your rules or chaos ensues, but this isn't deciding a pennant. No outcome that determines a championship is on the line with this decision. You're just acknowledging that something that happened happened. There is no gray area in this one - Galarraga got the 28th guy out too. The game ended either way.

He pitched a perfect game*. I didn't see it live, but based on the Sportscenter highlights it seemed like he may have pitched nearly the best game of all time. He was getting dudes out on 2-3 pitches an at bat, there didn't seem to be many battles or close plays. The Jackson catch to start the 9th, that was above average, but everything else looked pretty routine. It was a perfect game.

Galarraga should run for president someday. I can't believe how well he took this. That is some kind of compassion for your fellow man to let umpire Jim Joyce off the hook like that.

I like to think I'd do the same, but I'd say it's closer to 50/50 that I take the high road instead of unleashing a tumbling avalanche of profanity to the press after the game.

Bug Selig and company should just make an exception. Even if it goes against the rules. Nothing bad is going to happen, the universe isn't going to implode on itself. Teams will still play baseball tomorrow, life will go on.

Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game, and there's nothing wrong with everyone just agreeing to say it was so. Because it was so. It was SO so.

No one is going to swear off baseball if you make this decree, and anyone who would, you don't want em.  Do you watch sports for the game or for the rules?

And did I mention this is a game? I know it's big business and we care about it deeply, but it's still just a game. It's a hobby. No countries are going to go to war over this decision. Congress isn't going to investigate. We'll all just collectively say, "Oh, that's nice" and move on.

And frankly, not to get all melodramatic, but doesn't someone's life kind of hang in the balance? Joyce, the umpire who blew that call, is going to be known for this for the rest of his life. He knows he made a bad call. He's not denying it or trying to pretend it was anything other than what it was. He said safe. He should have said out. He knows he messed up. Why make him carry that around?

I'm not saying we necessarily have to worry about Joyce's mental health, I'm just saying, in the movie version of this story, he'd have a drinking problem and gambling debts in about 45 seconds of screen time.

This is a victimless crime. Nothing else needs to be changed, we can all just pretend the 28th batter never happened. This doesn't have to set a precedent, we can just call it a one-off and call it a day. Or perhaps just create a new rule:

When someone pitches a perfect game, he pitches a perfect game.