MLB: The Imperfect Game.

Forgive me, but I am still angry. One day later and I am still livid. Many of you who know me know that my biggest passion is and always will be baseball. So forgive me if on the heels of one of the greatest injustices in the history of the sport, I am still a little angry.

What would have been a perfect game, the third this season and the third within the time frame of a month, quickly turned into one giant black eye for Major League Baseball. Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was one out away from one or the rarest achievements in baseball history, the perfect game. Jason Donald hit a weak grounder to first baseman Miguel Cabrera who the threw to Galarraga covering at first. Galarraga beat Donald to the bag by over a step and a half yet umpire Jim Joyce flung his arms out and called him safe. 9 innings of perfection down the tube on a blown call.

But don’t get me wrong, it is not Joyce I am upset at, no this goes deeper than that. Jim Joyce will have to live with this mistake for the rest of his life, I don’t exactly envy the man. His career, unfortunately, will be defined by such a costly error and the fact is that no ump deserves to be put in that position.

Baseball purists love to throw words at you like tradition, and human element, and are notorious for their nostalgia and hard headedness. It is the belief that if it has worked for over 100 years then why change it? It is this same flawed thinking that has put MLB in the predicament it now finds itself. For years MLB has had the technology to implement instant replay but refused citing that it would slow down the game and that the human element is what makes the game unique and exciting. Bud Selig once said,

“Yes, we had some incidents that certainly need to be looked at. So I'm not minimizing them. But do I believe in instant replay? No, I do not, ... Human error is part of our sport.”

Perhaps, more important than preserving this “human element” is preserving the integrity of the sport. I for one am tired of baseball living in a fantasy world, of pretending exist in a bubble of “1931” and refusing to live in modern times. In the year 2010 we can capture a play on video not just from multiple angles but also in super slow motion. If baseball was being asked to be the pioneer in this technology I can understand the hesitation but the sport has been around longer than basketball and football, both sports who now employ the use of instant replay.

I am not advocating the use of instant replay to review calls on balls and strikes but it baffles me how MLB thinks using replay is only appropriate on defining whether a ball is fair or foul or a homerun or not. Last night was not an insignificant game, it was a chance, a once in a lifetime chance, for a young man to enter the record books in a sport he has worked hard all his life to excel in. It was an injustice and it broke the hearts of baseball fans everywhere including the very same umpire who made that call.

They say no one is perfect but last night on that mound at Comerica Park, Armando Galarrago was perfect, his teammates behind him where perfect, Austin Jackson with his incredible over the shoulder catch was perfect. Sadly, Jim Joyce was not and the league that stands behind him failed him by not granting him the opportunity to get it right.