Galarraga walking away in disbelief that the MLB can accept such malarkey as reasonable functionality

The history of a game between the Indians and Tigers that occurred June 2nd, 2010 could be read a whole lot differently and with better spirits than it will be written. Two men will forever go into the record books with blemishes on their record, one much more egregious than the other.

A single play at a base isn’t always reason to completely rethink the approach to integrating technologies into a game whose professional history runs deep into the 19th century. I just don’t think it’s correct to accept the idea that human error is a part of the game when it comes to the rules that govern that game. We have the ability to implement these technologies, they merely need expansion.

Armando Galarraga pitched 8.2 innings of perfect baseball before Jim Joyce ruled that Jason Donald was safe at first when Miguel Cabrera threw to his pitcher covering the bag. The fans at the stadium, the home audience, and Jason Donald himself knew that Galarraga had beat him with the baseball to first, but Joyce had seen otherwise. Instant replay, a technology used for television broadcasts and large-scale stadium displays for decades, was able to show the fans at home the play again from multiple angles in slow motion, furthering the idea that Donald was out.

After the game had ended and Galarraga finished with a complete game shutout having given up one hit, Joyce eventually apologized to the pitcher whom he had robbed of a historic outing. He said that he was sure he’d made the right call until he saw the video replay. That quote alone should tell Major League Baseball that there’s a problem with this situation; the umpire was able to see that he had made a terrible mistake, a monumental error, through his obviously incorrect call. The real problem is that it wasn’t even close at the base, and the ramifications are enormous.

Had some larger-scale instant replay system been in place, this uproar could have been avoided. Jim Leyland or Manny Acta could have come out of their dugouts and approached the officiating staff asking for a review of the play. 10 seconds of watching the recording of the play at 1st, even at full speed, could have salvaged the perfect game. We could have stopped having this dreaded conversation, been unaware of Jim Joyce’s existence, and moved on with our lives.

Instead, Jim Joyce has to feel remorse that he blew an obvious call and, in his own words, “cost that kid a perfect game.” Joyce will now have that hanging over his head for the rest of his life. Galarraga was unable to throw a perfect game, which would have made it the 2nd in less than a week’s time, and the 3rd in less than a month. I’m concerned because this could have been monumental, there hasn’t been two perfect games in the same season since 1880 before this season, and this could have been the third in the same season. Such feats will most likely never been achieved again, which is why this ordeal strikes me as offensive.

Rather than having a realistic outcome to this situation, we have to wonder when the MLB is going to stop rejecting technology like a bastard child. They need to accept the fact that it is unreasonable that someone watching the game from hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away can better judge a play at first base. I find it outright disrespectful to the players in professional baseball, as well as the owners and especially the fans, that Galarraga’s perfect game can be shrugged off with the notion that “nobody’s perfect.” Considering what was up for grabs here, that’s downright despicable.