Thursday, June 03, 2010

The not-so-Perfect Game

If anyone didn't see what happened last night in the Tigers game, the Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had a perfect game going into the ninth inning and with two outs, the umpire blew a call at first base calling the runner safe when he was clearly out costing Galarraga the perfect game.

A couple thoughts here.
No. 1 - This is going to bring an uproar about how baseball should have instant replay. I think I am one of the few against instant replay. One aspect of baseball that I love the most is the human judgment. Balls and Strikes are the ultimate human judgment call in sports and I love it. Yes, Jim Joyce cost someone one of the rarest feats in all of sports.......but let me make this statement. If a ground ball to third base went through the legs of the third basemen and that was the only runner to reach base then well, its not a perfect game. So while the umpire absolutely blew the call, he made an error. No different then the third basemen or anyone else making an error to nullify a perfecto. Sucks for Galarraga, but don't institute replay into the game because the umpire blew one call. They get 99.9% of the calls correct.

No. 2 - Anyone else realize that we almost had the 3rd perfect game of the season and the 4th in less then a calendar year? That's unheard of. Are the pitchers getting better? Is the steroid era over? We have a pitcher, Jubaldo Jimenez, with an ERA under 1.00 in JUNE.

No comments: