After years decades of offensive dominance, it appears as if major league baseball has dramatically swung the opposite direction. Welcome to the era of pitching dominance. Last night a previously unknown Detroit Tiger named Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game. 27 Indians came up to the plate over 9 innings, and 27 Indians made outs over those 9 innings. It was the third perfect game in the majors this season. Prior to the start of this season, there had only ever been 18 perfect games. Ever.Pay no attention to what you saw. Pay no attention to what you read following the game. There should be no questions. If an official scorer can rule on an error made in the field by a player, it is perfectly logical for everyone to rule on an error made by an umpire. The kid pitched a no-hitter. The kid pitched a perfect game. That is all there is to it. Everyone was so happy they decided to allow one more Indian hit, just for the fun of it.
Nothing like this has been seen since the 1968 season. That was the year Bob Gibson and Denny McClain launched the game into the offensive rocket ship we have experienced most of my lifetime. Gibson had a microscopic ERA of 1.12 for the entire season. McClain won 31 games leading the Tigers to the world championship.
In response to the 1968 season, MLB lowered the mound and shrunk the strike zone to give the hitters more of a chance. A few years later, the American League added the DH, eliminating the easy out previously delivered by a pitcher at bat. The game was never the same, until now.
Maybe in response to the 2010 season, MLB will officially recognize the perfect game we all clearly watched last night and institute some expanded version of instant replay to ensure the human beings they employ to arbitrate the game get it right.
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i was watching the game with my boys since my dad texted me that the tribe was about to be the victim of a perfect game. turned on mlb.tv and got to see one of the worst calls in the history of baseball. i was able to rewind it and show my boys how gallaraga carried himself after the call - the picture of poise and grace. i'm now a fan of his.
As I could care less about baseball and most importantly the Cleveland Indians (clowns) I had no idea this even happened. I'll have to read up on it.
Anyone looking for the MLB commish to do the right thing??
It is NOT going to happen.
Of course Selig would make this choice, I swear he has a little voice in his head that tells him the opposite of what the "right thing to do" really is.
Looks like the Hall of Fame did the right thing.
That's odd that the ump would even make the call. When you get that far into a perfect game or something you'd think the ump would lean more towards making the out call and rewarding the perfection. I'm betting after a few weeks of flak over it they will reverse the call in the books somewhere.
Part of me wants to see Selig reverse the call but part of me doesn't. I think Selig should reverse the call because the guy was in fact out, the guy knows it, the ump knows it, the pitcher knows it, etc. However, I think the can of worms that opens is not worth it. I mean how far back do we go in reversing calls? Should the Yankees get one of their world series taken away because of the Maier catch? Should the Cubs be awarded a world series because of the doofus that interfered with the play? Crappy calls are a part of sports and no matter how much we try to achieve perfection, we can't.
But Gallaraga and the umpire handled this with a degree of class that is rare in sports. The umpire admitted he screwed up and that is kind of refreshing after watching hearings of higher paid folks pointing fingers at each other about who to blame and politicians blaming everyone under the sun except them. And instead of whining about it, Gallaraga carried himself with class.
Hopefully this will lead to a tweaking of the rules.
Rudyard Kipling would be proud of Gallaraga "IF" he were here.
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