Armando Galarraga of the Tigers was just robbed. With two outs in the ninth inning, one out away from a perfect game, Jason Donald of the Indians hit a ground ball to first base, and what happened next will be talked about for a long time. Check the video here.
Everyone can clearly see that Jason Donald was out. The reaction from everyone is classic after the play. Everyone can forget about Bud Selig granting Armando a perfect game because, well… it’s Bud Selig, so I don’t need to say more. The most incredible part of this story is how everyone handled it so well. By all accounts, Jim Joyce was distraught after the game. He said:
“Most important call of my career and I kicked the s$&t out of it. I cost that kid a perfect game. I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay. I don’t blame them a bit or anything that was said, Joyce said. I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”
I can not believe how Galarraga handled it during and after the game. During the game, he just walked away and did not even say anything. He is a better man than me, because I probably would have thrown my glove at the ump. After the game he said that “no one is perfect.” Joyce also apologized, Armando accepted, and they even hugged it out. I seriously can’t believe I just typed all that in reference to professional sports.
The umpire, to his credit, owned up to this epic mistake when you know most people in his shoes would have just left and hoped to never be heard from again. You want to be outraged because he just cost someone a perfect game, something that has only been done 20 times in baseball history. However, I feel like we should forgive and forget because of how well everyone handled this. It could have gotten real ugly, but thankfully it did not. Hats off to all involved.
Greg Smith is one of the newest writers and comes from a long background of high school star athletes and arm chair quarterbacks. You can follow Greg on Twitter at http://twitter.com/g_twitty