There is at least one other thread about this (and I haven’t even checked The Pit), however, I wanted to see if we could come up with a solution to this miscarriage of perfection in a forum of civility. Lacking that, it seemed like a Great Debate in the making. 
For those who do not know, this is a baseball issue. Last night Armando Galarraga had pitched to 26 batters and got 26 outs and was one out away from only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history (and interestingly the third in less than a month) when this happened.
Umpire errors are a part of the game however technology has played an increasingly more prominent role in officiating, even in baseball. And this error will undoubtedly open up baseball to a push for even more technological involvement to help umpires who are increasingly under fire.
However, that’s another debate. Right now, I feel just sick for this poor kid who had baseball immortality snatched away from him by an umpire’s incompetence.
I feel that baseball can very well step in and change that call. The umpire himself already said the call was wrong. The fact is that the umpire could have changed his call at any point after the call if he was persuaded - well, he happened to be persuaded 20 minutes after the game instead of 30 seconds later.
Baseball purists can say that this opens up things for anarchistic reviews of plays that happened ages ago, affecting games and championships even, but there is no reason to go into the vault and micro-manage this because this is being done for an extremely unique event: Had the same play happened on the 26th batter instead of the 27th, I would feel badly but still there is the doubt: Maybe the last hitter gets a hit anyway, maybe that batter is when Galarraga makes his mistake or the hitter gets a bloop single - either way, we cannot know.
But in this case, this one fleeting case of which I cannot imagine a parallel in baseball history, the outcome was known. The pitcher induced a ground ball and then he and the first baseman perfectly made the play. It was the 27th and final out. There was nothing left, no shades of doubt.
Baseball purists want to speak of the integrity of the game? As far as I am concerend, you can maintain the integrity of the game by allowing this kid his perfect game by changing that second-to-last at bat from infield single to a groundout.
There is even precedent for this in other sports: In the college ranks, a team can be stripped of entire swaths of victories and even championships if it was found that one player ran afoul of their rules, sometimes years after the games had been played. Those kinds of things create serious question marks since those games didn’t happen in a vaccuum and every team that they beat along the way has a gripe about how this changing of history didn’t really help them at all.
In this case, nobody thinks that Galarraga didn’t throw a perfect game - the umpire says it, baseball fans say it, the other team says it - hell, even the Michigan Governor awarded him an “honorary” perfect game.
It won’t take much for baseball to say “you’re all right” and make it official. All it will take is for Bud Selig to do the right thing. And make no mistake, this is the right thing because this is justice and this is fairness.
I doubt Sellig has the courage to do this - I mean, look at how he has handled almost all of the pressing issues in baseball - and if he doesn’t, I am hopeful that Galarraga gains more infamy from his imperfect perfection, kind of like how Harvey Haddix is still revered for his perfect game for 13 innings that he lost much more than, say, Mike Witt or Len Barker (to name two pitchers who threw perfect games but whom only diehards might know).
I still think it’s the right thing to do.