Blown call cost Galarraga perfect game
 

I'm not a huge MLB fan but given that this is a once in a lifetime achievement, I felt this was an absolute tragedy for this guy - to have his perfect game stolen by a shitty call by the 1st base ump.

It wasn't even that close - he beat the runner by at least half a step. And on the last out? WTF???

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big...urn=mlb,245292

Wow that would have made 3 in one season... this is the first time 2 in one season has ever been recorded I think...

Berz out.

Such a bad call by the umpire. I think since every major sport has the "review" now so they should add it to baseball.

Watched it again and felt bad for the pitcher. Perfect game is probably one/if not the hardest feat to accomplish in any sport and ruined by the umpire lol.. fireed

wow he beat him by a full step

According to http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=323469:

At least the umpire admitted he screwed up, and apologized to Galarraga.

Small consolation though. Hey bud... sorry I made a bad call and erased your name from the history books forever. No hard feelings?

Berz out.

Apology or not, the ump and everyone who saw the play knew he was wrong - it's not like he could deny it.

The real hero (of the game and the aftermath) was Galarraga. He took the whole situation better than most would.

At the very least he should get his name in the books (asterisk or not).

I can't believe Bud Selig would not overturn/reverse the call.

Good for Galarraga for handling this with respect. Watching the game yesterday and him going up to the umpire is pure class.. same goes for the whole team/franchise.... at the end of the day, it's a sport, shit happens...and he should just be grateful that he gets to play pro baseball and get paid $$. The whole sports world know that it was a perfect game so I'm sure it's all good now.

I think he said he will jsut look into adding the instant replay option for the umpires now (finally...)

Same here, it happens in the 9th inning with the 1 more out left, ud think the umps would just get together and overturn the call. Totally erased History and this is a perfect example for this

Problem is it opens up a whole other can of worms. Even though this was a ridiculously important blown call in terms of a personal achievement, ultimately it didn't lead to a different outcome of the game itself. If Selig randomly decided this was significant enough to warrant an overturning of the call, it will have significant ramifications for both future and past blown calls.

I'd like baseball to be left the way it is. If they go to video review, may as well not have umps at all.

I totally understand where you're coming from BUT:

- It wasn't only a personal achievement, it takes a whole team to pull off a perfect game.

- Circustances. Had it been any other out than the last one, a case could be made. It was the game ender and was wrong. Given the circumstanes, I think an overrule would be acceptable. No-no's are pretty rare (266 in 135 seasons)

- Technology. Many professional sports have adopted some sort of replay. Maybe it's time for MLB to move it into the 21st century. There are tons of breaks anyways - it's not like it would really interrupt the flow of the game. Maybe 2 appeals/team/game.

And what are they going to do? go to the video replay for every out? every pitch? lol..... Of course it will only be used for "close" calls such as this.

That may be true, but really it's a personal achievement for the pitcher. Nobody cares who all the others players that supported him were.

Well, we're talking about a perfect game, not a no hitter... which has only been done 20 times in history. This would have been the 21st. It's crazy that there has already been two this year, and this should have been the third, and second in less than a week.

But it doesn't matter what the circumstances are... there is nothing defined in the rules that say exceptional circumstances warrants an overrule, so he can't just make a new rule up on the fly after the fact.

Well, they actually do use video review already... but only for determining whether a ball is a home run or foul ball when it passes by the foul pole. Should it be expanded? Probably.

The thing is in this day and age, way more of the officiating duties COULD be done via electronics... and it would probably be a lot more accurate and consistent than humans. But they always want to preserve the human element to the officiating as much as possible, and it's only when things go egregiously wrong like in this case where they start considering using more technology to reduce human error.

Jim Joyce apologize

he sounds pretty sincere and i will forgive him if i were the pitcher

The pitcher was very humble and nice about it...that was surprising.

If baseball had a review, man it would slow down the game big time. As if it isn't already slow.

Whoops, yeah perfect game. Which IMO warrants special circumstances.

Slow down...baseballl??? Is that even possible?

I am against video replay for all sports. I understand why they are there, a lot of money is on the line each and every game (unless you're the Raptors =P ). I just thinks sports can be one of the last pure things left.

Take this perfect game for example, I didn't watch the whole thing, I watched two innings, oblivious to the fact I could have seen a perfect game (it still is a perfect game in my eyes). There were some strikes that should have been balls. A pitch thrown that is called a strike when shouldn't have is essentially the same as being called safe when out. They have the technology to not even need umpires anymore, but it just wouldn't be the same to most baseball fans.

Why are you guys saying that the sport can be work w/out umpires but just technology.. Can someone explain how that will work? do they have to look up the big screen to see if it was a strike or what the count is or if they are out? lol

I personally like it in sports. i.e. hockey/basketball/football and they only do it in certain plays or hard to judge like did it cross the goal line, did he shoot on time, did he get the 1st down...

Well for the batter the strike zone is a defined space between the height of the batter and the width of the plate. You've seen those images where they superimpose the box over the plate and show where the pitcher has thrown every ball against a batter. A computer could just as easy use that exact method to determine if it was a ball or strike and call it accordingly. As for plays at the bases like the one in question you need the human element there to make the call.

Berz out.

Yes, that cam is good for the homeplate but how will the players know if they called it strike or ball if there's no umps? lols. Are they suppose to look up the screen just to see where the pitch was?

Reviews are great as long as it's reasonable and it's still the umpire's call if they should review or not. Otherwise, all managers/players will ask for the damn replay for every 3rd strike called.

Agreed, that's why I said 2/team/game. If they're going to call a review it has to be worth it.