June 3rd, 2010

Perfect Blunder

A perfect game is something every pitcher in the MLB strives for. Only 20 pitchers have done it a baseball reference site shows that there have been 394,190 games played. Two teams play each game so a perfect game has been attempted 788,380 teams. The probability of a perfect game is .00025%. Wow!

For those who don't know...a perfect game is when a pitcher does not allow a single base hit or a single walk.

It appeared as though Armando Gallaraga did it yesterday. Your eyes can deceive you though. It was the 9th inning and there were two outs. One more out and the 21st perfect game in MLB history would be in the books. Here's what happened.

The base runner was clearly out. There goes Gallaraga's dream of throwing a perfect game. There has been a huge backlash from the fans over the past 24 hours and Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, said that he would think about overturning the call. He later decided that that won't happen but they will look at adding more instant replay in baseball games.

Do you think the decision should be overturned? I certainly do. Referees and umpires have the job to get the call on the field right. There's no way that this takes away from the integrity of the game. I understand that it's too late to take back bad calls in the past but get it right now. This kid deserves to have this honour under his belt.

Baseball fans around the world know that it was a perfect game, Detroit Tiger fans and Cleveland Indians players included. In an attempt at justice, GM presented Gallaraga with a 2010 Corvette convertible earlier today. The umpire who made the wrong call, Jim Joyce, has since apologized the pitcher and it's been accepted.

It's good to see sportsmanship every now and then, isn't it?

 

Trav - follow me on Twitter (TravisLee87)