I’m pretty sure that everyone who grew up playing baseball has been supremely jobbed by an ump at least once in his life. I was standing on second base at Krank Park in Albany when the 1989 county little league championship game ended. My West Albany Little League lost 1-0 to City American Little League after Josh Myrtle struck out with runners on 2nd and 3rd. Two pitches earlier, I had scored the winning run when Josh sent a no-doubter high down the left field line and into the south-side night.I was halfway between 3rd and home, trotting with my hands in the air, before I realized they were sending me back to second. Foul ball, my ass. That thing was fair by 20 feet. And everyone in the park knew it. Even the ump. But he didn’t change his call. And Krank Park still doesn’t have tall enough foul poles. Years later, when we were playing Babe Ruth, Josh was still bitter. “That was my last little league at-bat. That fucker ended my childhood.”
Fast forward to last night. Five thoughts, in no particular order:
1. There is no question in my mind that perfect-game attempts are the most exciting thing that one can randomly happen upon when you’re sitting around watching otherwise-meaningless regular-season sports. Normally, I might choose a Golden Girls rerun over having to watch every pitch of a A’s-Rays game, but make it a perfect game in the 7th inning and I’ll be afraid to go the bathroom. And the Internet / cable TV revolution has made it so much more likely that you’ll be able to get to the game live. I’ve seen all three this month, and it’s been great.
2. My friend JD asked me, “Is this the most “tragic” thing to ever happen on a major league baseball field?” It’s pretty damn close. If you exclude serious injury/death (Chapman, Conigliaro, etc.), playoff anti-heroics (1985 game 6 botched call), and death due to playoff anti-heroics (Donnie Moore’s suicide), then yeah, it’s got to be right up there. I’m nearly certain that it’s the most tragic missed-call ever in a meaningless regular-season game. Even if an official scorer ruled an obvious hit an error on the last day of the season, and that dropped someone to .399 or cut short a would-have-been 57-game hitting streak, I don’t think it would be this bad.
3. How much will this stand out in our minds 30 years from now? Will we remember Galarraga’s name? Will we remember Joyce’s? I’m don’t know. Someone has already tried to convince me that kids born next year will think of Galarraga they way guys my age think of Harvey Haddix. I’m not so sure. I agree that Galarraga’s game will be remembered far more than Braden’s or Halladay’s. But Haddix’s feat is still above and beyond more remarkable, by an order of magnitude. And his story has the added sad-sack factor that he ended up taking the loss. Furthermore, botched calls are not the stuff of legend the way homers or errors or other on-field actions are. Even the jobbing St. Louis took in the 1985 world series is not particularly memorable nowadays, at least in comparison to Buckner’s error or Henderson’s homer a year later. Same thing with the non-interference call in the ’75 World Series. Nine out of ten guys who follow baseball can tell you about Fisk’s homer in game 6, but how many can recount Fisk screaming his lungs out at Larry Barnett after Armbrister’s bunt/interference in game 3? Probably the most memorable comparable umpire ruling of my life time is the Pine Tar Game, but that had two huge things going for it — a superstar (Brett) at the center of the controversy, and the fact that he came storming out of the dugout to literally kill Tim McClellan. Those two things gave that game huge cache, and a killer highlight clip. I’m not sure last night has that, although if Galarraga or Cabrerra had physically gone after Joyce, well, game, set, match.
4. I feel bad for Joyce. I recently read As They See ‘Em, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for how seriously and professionally these guys take their jobs. There is no way that Joyce slept even a minute last night, and it wouldn’t shock me if he ends up taking a leave of absence for a period of time.
5. What is the probability of three perfect-games being pitched in one month? My super-back-of-the-envelope calculation would be this: an average of 24 teams playing an average of 158 games would mean approximately 205,128 games since 1900, not including this season. There were 16 perfect games during that span, meaning one every 12,820 games. In May 2010, you have roughly 375 major league games, meaning (again, only doing the top-row math) the odds of one perfect game in a given month in 2010 was something like 1 in 35. So the probability of three was approximately 1 in 42,875. I do wonder if there is some weak non-independence to all this. Recall that right after Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, a whole bunch of other guys did it, as if the confidence of knowing it could be done helped them to do it. Baseball is certainly different than running, but I wonder if there’s a marginal, viral confidence effect when you are in the 8th inning of a perfect game if you know two guys have already done it this month.
I think the other thing kind of forgotten in this was the respectable way that Galloraga acted. He had every right to go after Joyce and just tear into him, but he didn’t. I am not sure why he didn’t. But as a sports fan these days when every athlete seems to think they are getting screwed or are showboating, it’s nice to see an athlete take it in stride and realize what they are doing is there job, but ultimately it’s just a game.
The fact that MLB TV announcers were saying he may need an escort out of the stadium is absurd. That’s akin to the Colombian soccer player who scored an own-goal against the US and then was killed shortly upon his return to Colombia. I understand people are emotionally invested in sports (I didn’t watch Sportscenter for two months after the Giants beat the Pats in the SB), but come on there are so many other serious issues facing this country and frankly Detroit.
Anyways I don’t want to get too philosophical, but it is good to see an athlete act like an adult and take it in stride.
P.S. What do you think if the MLB Commish overturns the safe call and awards the perfect game?
I completely agree about Galarraga’s behavior. Incredible composure and class. I was also impressed with Joyce after the game – he owned up to it immediately and publicly, and apparently went and apologized personally to Galarraga. Does Cowboy Joe West do that? I don’t know.
As for the commissioner overturning it, I’m probably against it because it just opens up too many cans of worms. But more importantly, the lasting memory of a perfect game is the celebration on the mound. That can never be re-created. Galarraga knows he threw a perfect game; he said that’s what he is going to tell his kids. I don’t see any reason to alter the books at this point.
Matt
I liked the reaction of the Cleveland batter/runner: he put his hands to his helmet in a way vaguely reminiscent of LT after breaking Theismann, a sort of “oh no, what have I done?” Similarly odd reactions from folks in the Cleveland dugout.
Galarraga says he didn’t know he’d been shafted until he saw the replay, so maybe that somewhat explains his reaction. Plus he seems like an even-keeled guy.
Re: Brett and “the fact that he came storming out of the dugout to literally kill Tim McClellan.” That is soooo true. My visual memory of the event is Brett as he’s just coming out of the dugout, and everyone already realizes he has to be stopped or he will kill the guy. That face!
Henderson’s homer and Buckner’s error were both 1986. What I don’t like about the global memory of Buckner’s error is that most people seem to think that if he made that out, Boston would have won. I even saw this in some espn.com list of ‘worst miscues’ or something like that. But the game was already tied. They’d just have gone to the next inning–with, I could add, the Met’s bullpen not being as used up as Boston’s.
Yes, both occurred in 1986 — that’s ambiguous writing, not a typo. Ugh.
Agree 100% about Buckner. People want to remember into that one play all the drama of the entire 10th inning. The real goat has always been Stanley (or Gedman if you think it was a passed ball; or McNamara if you think Stanley — or Buckner — had no business being on the field in that situation) — that was the inexcusable error. And more to the point about Buckner’s error, it’s not obvious that a 35 year-old man playing on two disintegrated knees beats Wilson to first even if he does field the ball cleanly.
Matt