Yup - and so’s the ump. He’s come out and said he blew it, and everything yelled at him was absolutely justified. He even gave Galarraga props for not reacting. My heart goes out that kid - I really wish something could be done.
In this instance, I would be completely OK with the commissioner overruling the umpire.
Agreed. I watched that game and he was annihilating the Indians (but he was getting a few borderline calls against lefties, especially late in the game). The ump made the wrong call, went to check it, found out that he did, and felt horrible. I’m glad we got the W, though. We needed a win or three. Hopefully this gets us back into it.
Class act or not Jim Joyce is now forever stuck in the shit filled corner with Buckner,and Bartman.
Word.
I watched the replay for the first time. I am not a huge baseball fan - I only watch the Yankees and don’t much care about anything else. But that play, watching it unfold, I wanted to vomit.
I was watching the Yankee game when they said said the perfect game was happening. I flipped over to ESPN just in time to see it live. I was stunned.
Not condeming him for saying the right thing but what else could he say? It was blatantly obvious.
He could have blabbered on about doing the best he could, or made up some bullshit excuse. There’s no way to come out ahead here, but he is doing as well as anyone could.
I do think this is going to accelerate the push for replay. Although replay shouldn’t have been necessary here anyway - it was not a close call. And my understanding is that this could not have been called an error. There’s no error-worthy part: the throw was on target and even if it had been late, you can’t charge an error for slow play. Of course even if they’d called it an error the perfect game would have been over.
I don’t know if there is any way for the call to be overturned, but I suspect there isn’t.
There’s something very wrong with baseball if Selig and the MLB Office doesn’t step in and fix this. There’'s no justification for not correcting the call and scoring of this special circumstance short of silly old timer dogma.
You could possibly argue that if the call had been correct then the first baseman clearly must have screwed up - by bobbling the catch, or failing to get his foot on the base, etc. But it’s obvious that none of those things actually happened.
Scorers are allowed to use replay, right?
Has this ever happened? Under what rule or provision would this be okay?
I’m not a fan of replay but this is a situation where there is absolutely no ambiguity in what would result from reviewing the play and overturning the decision.
I would have no problem at all with the commissioner overruling the call and awarding the out and perfect game. I have no idea if he actually has that authority though.
It has to be fixed…please.
I live in Michigan and hate the Tigers,(Reds Fan) I root against them, but I was cheering for the 27th out.I am sickened.
In general, in baseball, what has happened has happened. Misinterpretation of rules, as in George Brett’s pine tar, can lead to a replay. Bad calls cannot. It’s not silly old timer dogma; it’s the rules.
This bad call is a good argument for adding instant replay to the rules of baseball, but it’s not a good argument for overturning the results of a completed game.
I’m not sure what the scorers are allowed to do. But neither player screwed up in any way - Cabrera fielded the ball cleanly and his throw was fine. If the pitcher had failed to get his feet down I don’t think that could be scored an error. This doesn’t scan logically, and regardless, Galarraga would be denied the perfect game based on the fuckup. I know he’d still have a no-hitter but given the fact that it centers on a wrong call, it’s not really a consolation prize.
Joyce blew this completely. Good for him that he’s not trying to dodge it, and by all accounts he feels horrible. But he did get it wrong and it’s out of his hands at this point.
Go Tribe!
At least Jim Joyce will have Southwest Airlines commercials to fall back on.
Make that “pitcher covering first base”.
What’s better than an umpire that can honestly admit when he’s wrong?
- An arrogant jerk who gets the call right.
Since it was the Indians, I was watching the game and listening to the radio play-by-play. Both of the Indians announcers (the great Tom Hamilton and former major leaguer Mike Hegan) were absolutely stunned. Tonight’s post-game show lasted quite a bit longer than usual, as all they could do was find new ways to shake their heads.
Hamilton is not one to hide his feelings, and he ripped Joyce and Major League Baseball a new one. As he said, if you go 0-30, you get sent to the minors. If you repeatedly blow calls, you get a raise. (Lost in all of this was the fact that Joyce blew another first base call on what should have been the third out of the previous inning, thus allowing the Tigers to score two more runs.)
He lashed out at Joe West and other umps too. He has never hidden his scorn for C.V. Buckner, for example…perhaps the most brutal ump in the game right now. He asked, quite rightly, what it will take for MLB to do something about the often appalling level of officiating in the game today.
Here’s the thing that no one, in all the stories and online postings I’ve read the past couple of hours, has pointed out. The idea that umps must unfailingly make the call based on what they see before them at all times is a myth. Baseball is full of unwritten rules of all kinds, and some of them apply to umpires’ calls, too.
For example, there’s the phantom tag of second base on a double play. As long as the 2nd baseman or shortstop is in the general vicinity of the bag on the front end of a double play, the out will be called whether he actually touched the base or not. And there are plenty of other examples of the final called strike that ends a game being called, regardless of whether it was really a strike or not. It’s said that Don Larsen’s 1956 World Series perfect game ended on such a call.
The point being, on a close play in this situation, no one on earth will complain if the call results in a historic moment for baseball. Umps may try to mouth the party line on this, but they all know that it’s true.
If Joyce calls Donald out and the replay shows that he was actually safe, who on earth will make an issue of it? No one, including the Indians, would think of it for a second. Yeah, you try to beat the other team, even if you’re mired in the basement as the Indians are – but you’re also a ballplayer, and you understand the history of this great game you and your opponents play, and the emotions that are a part of it.
I know that Joyce has only a split-second to make the call, but he also had the opportunity in the moments leading up to it to put everything in context in this way. If the runner were very clearly safe, no one could fault him for making the call. But on a close play such as this one, there shouldn’t be any hesitation.
Joyce can’t be faulted for any infraction of written rules. He did what an ump is officially supposed to do – he called it as he saw it. But his clear violation of the unwritten rules, which IMO is one of the many things that makes baseball the wonderful game it is, should be cause for condemnation.