Remember the days when you rounded up as many kids in the neighborhood as possible in order to play a baseball game at the park?
Tennis balls, wooden bats, and short orange cones were usually the equipment of choice, as you didn’t need a glove to play outfield and even the kid with Velcro tightened sneakers, tube socks, and a smothering mom could hit a tennis ball 400 feet.
Of course, the act of organizing and playing out a full game was rarely possible.
Sometimes you fell short of players because one or two happened to be grounded. Or maybe you couldn’t detach a pair of guys who were right in the middle of a Mike Tyson’s Punch Out Nintendo marathon.
Sometimes you had to bribe the soccer kids, who insisted on resting all day for a five o’clock practice, to come out and play.
Or sometimes you simply came to fist-a-cuffs in the fifth inning with your next-door neighbor over a close call at first base.
Sandlot games were just a lot of work, because no matter how hard you tried, you could rarely put all the pieces together to cohesively play the sought after perfect game on a perfect day at the park.
Heck, even the big leaguers rarely suit up for what they call a perfect game. Just ask Tigers starting pitcher Armando Galarraga—on what was supposed to be the last live play of his last start, he was robbed of officially pitching a perfect game because umpire Jim Joyce clearly made the wrong call on a play at first base.
Then everyone who cares about baseball collectively turned his/her head towards Commissioner Bud, hoping he would overturn the umpire’s call based on the “best interest of the game” clause he can act on as commander-in-chief of the sport.
Then to paraphrase, Bud reminded us that life isn’t fair. No perfect game. Perfect cop out, though.
Let me get this straight, Commish: So because umpire Jim Joyce, who did admit fault by the way, was wrong for a nanosecond, Galarraga will never officially get credit for an immaculate sporting feat for as long as Major League Baseball exists?
Something just doesn’t seem right there.
Who or what in God’s name is Selig afraid of? There is no comparison to this call, Bud. Every other hypothetical comparison in sport is apples and oranges.
Is Bud afraid of being viewed as an over-meddlesome dictator, or a non god-fearing mad scientist?
One can never analyze a situation like this and forget about vanity or the ego, either. By agreeing with the majority here, maybe Bud actually believes he would be empowering the fan or media by overturning Joyce’s call.
This game was going to define someone’s career. It was going to make Galarraga’s life better. The guy spent roughly nine seasons in the minor leagues.
Think about this: In a dream you are visited by the Baseball Gods who make you an offer either to be an average starting pitcher for 10 seasons (minor leagues included) or to pitch one perfect game. Well, you may actually have a harder time picking between the two. Galarraga had a chance to say he did both.
Instead, Galarraga will forever be associated with controversy about how he was perfect but not perfect. And the majority of baseball followers will still be disappointed in Bud’s decision making, and inability to right a wrong in a timely fashion.
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