United Liberty
A botched perfect game may wind up as fodder in Congress
Fri, 06/04/2010 - 10:24am | posted by Jason Pye
Armando Galarraga pitched the game of his life against the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday night. With two outs in the top of the 9th, he was one out away from a perfect game, a rare feet in baseball. Twenty-seven batters faced, twenty-seven outs. No walks, no errors.
The last hitter he faced, Jason Donald, hit a ground ball to the hole between first and second. It was fielded by Miguel Cabrera and tossed to Galarraga, who was covering the bag at first. Jim Joyce, the first-base umpire, called Donald safe, killing the perfect game/no-hitter.
It was a close play, and it’s obvious from looking at the replay that Joyce missed the call. He even admits that he missed it. The outrage from fans has been loud, though mixed as far as reversing the call to somehow give Galarraga the perfect game.
Galarraga has been a class act, by the way. This was the scene today in Detroit:
But I wondered out loud yesterday on Twitter:
How long before some dumbass in Congress launches an investigation into last night’s botched perfect game?
About three hours later, I saw this press release from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) asking Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, to give Galarraga a perfect game. Selig has declined to do so. Around the same time, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) declared Galarraga gem to be a perfect game.
And now, since Congress apparently has the power to alter the course of history, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) is introducing a resolution that, if passed, would put Congress on the record:
U.S. Congressman John Dingell plans to introduce a resolution that calls on Major League Baseball to overturn the bad call that cost Armando Galarraga a ‘perfect game.’
He will introduce the resolution upon his return to Washington.
“Jim Joyce missed the call, but because he admitted it, we have a leg to stand on in our case to Major League Baseball,” Dingell said. “Baseball’s executives have corrected a mistake on the field in a regular season game before – the pine tar game. This is the right thing to do and if getting this resolution passed makes it easier, I’m glad to help.”
What’s done is done. Blown calls are part of the game, not just baseball, but every sport. We can’t spend time going back and fixing an injustice, nor should we. Disappointment is part of life.
I’m a bit of a baseball purist. I despise the designated hitter, interleague play and instant replay for home runs, among many other things. I believe that steroids undermined the game. However, I didn’t like Congress getting in the middle of that dust-up.
As with the Bowl Championship Series, politicians should stay out of sports, what many Americans turn to for something to get their minds off the news and stress of putting up with the insanity in Washington.
Stay out of baseball.
Come on Jason…lighten up. With all the bad going on in the world, give Armando and Jim Joyce a break. Armando earned this perfect game and if Congressman Dingell can help, let him.
“Blown calls are part of the game” Why is that? Why does it have to be that way? Accept the things in life that you can’t change, sure, that’s good advice for living life. But this injustice can be changed, and made right, very easily. It only takes one edict, a few words, to make history align with reality.
It can be done. That’s why it _should_ be done.
So are we going to go back to calls that actually matter (cost a win) and turn them around too? perhaps we can replay playoff games that should have happened because of bad calls in the second inning of a seemingless irrelevant game in April one year actually was the margin of difference in who made the post-season?
If the call had happened to the first batter of the game instead of the next to last, would people complain just as loudly.
Many a near perfect game or no-hitter has been spoiled by a blown call, “fixing” this one will just undermine the integrity of a game that does not have much integrity left.
Well said.
Absolutely agree.
Is it sad that Galarraga missed out on a perfect game, something that’s only happened a handful of times before in baseball? Absolutely. If Bud Selig had decided to change the call, I’d have been content. But for Congress to get involved in a decision that has nothing to do with them is just a sign of how intrusive they seem to believe they have a right to be. It’s not discriminatory in any way, it was just a blown call, and therefore they have the same right to be upset that everyone else has and nothing more.
It’s sad that both the player and the umpire have shown more class than pandering politicians.
Michigan’s economy is in the tank, Detroit rots and all our Congressmen and Governor can do is get the federal government involved in baseball. Dingell’s been in Congress 55 years, I think he’s forgotten what is and isn’t his business.