I can find no evidence that baseball has ever overturned an umpire’s safe/out; ball/strike; balk/not a balk; etc.; call on the field after the end of the game. Can anyone?
I sincerely hope that instant replay in baseball will not be extended to every close play at any base. Talk about a slow game.
I have a rule for a no-hitter/perfect game that I think is better and simpler than MLB’s–the pitcher must be the starting pitcher and he must pitch a complete game. That allows such as Denny Martinez’ five inning no-hitter, and removes such as Ernie Shore. Yes, sadly, it also removes such as Haddix, but, hell, we still know what Haddix did.
Yes, Frank, the Pine Tar Game. Brett was called out for using an illegal bat, but MLB reversed the call and ordered the game resumed from that point, cancelling everything that had happened afterward.
If you know what Haddix did, then THAT was the most perfect game ever pitched. 38 outs.
That’s not a judgment call (e.g., as Frank said, safe/out; ball/strike; etc.), that’s a protest over the misapplication of a rule. That’s the only protest that will be entertained–a rule was misunderstood and misapplied. Judgment calls have never been reversed after a game is in the books, not that I’m aware of. And I would have been okay with the perfect game being “reinstated,” but I acknowledge that’s emotional on my part. There’s really no basis for it in the rules.
Fair enough, but then how about all the instances of home runs being ruled foul, and vice versa, since replay was instituted? Those are judgment-based on-field calls too. We use replay when possible in every other sport, in every situation when it can help, because we know sportsmanship requires getting the calls right, not just respecting the officials, who want to get it right too btw.
What’s the difference? The evidence is available and it’s clear cut, if the available tools are used to their fullest extent. Baseball’s only truly nonreviewable judgment calls, even today, are balls and strikes. And the technology is conceivable to take even that margin of error out of the game.
But even those options are unavailable if a single play takes place, right? Again, it’s real time, according to recently established rules, not something that occurs after the game, or even after a single subsequent play. I do think that’s what makes this case more easy to overturn–nothing about the outcome of the game (except the phantom hit and the next at bat) gets changed if the perfect game is reinstated. But, again, I acknowledge I can’t really point to a rule or a precedent that permits it.
For this case? Not much difference, I agree. The rules don’t permit it, but it feels like nitpicking in this instance.
The call was wrong, and it would be simple to fix this. This is why I think Bud Selig is truly an idiot. I just don’t say that to be poking fun at him. I truly think he is has a double digit IQ.
The game was over. The next guy grounded out, so what would actually change? One guy would get a free at bat on his season total. Big deal.
The pitcher would get a perfect game, the greatest achievement possible for a pitcher. He’ll never do it again. But in my mind, he did it already, so his name should be added to the list of 19-20 pitchers who have done it in the history of the game.
But Bud is a toad. Afraid of opening a pandora’s box. What pandora’s box? Remember George Brett’s pine tar bat game? He hit a home run with a bat with too much pine tar, and a 5-4 lead in the ninth was changed to a 4-3 win for the Yankees. The Royals protested and the league agreed with them. They got to replay the last 4 outs of the game, and the Royals got to keep the win. The right thing to do and the right call.
Gah! I hate stupid people. Bud Selig is stupid people. And you can’t fix stupid. :smack:
Just to clean this unbelievable pitching feat, Haddix pitched perfect for 12 straight innings. 36 straight outs. The lead-off hitter for the Braves in the 13th reached on an error by infielder Don Hoak.
I agree with the idea that Haddix pitched the most incredible game in MLB history. It has stood the test of time, and still boggles the mind. The Pirates sucked even then and couldn’t get him one run even though they had 12 hits of their own.
It’s also not a piticher’s fault if a shortstop boots a ground ball, but you still wouldn’t call it a perfect game. Galarraga’s game was more a perfect game than Haddix’s, in my opinion. That doesn’t change the greatness of what Haddix did; nonetheless, I see Galarraga’s feat as truer to the sense of a perfect game. You are free to disagree, and I certainly can see the argument, but please spare us your usual “you don’t know anything about baseball” horseshit.
Now, just to be fair, the Pine Tar Game, despite what some posters have said, was not a case of the league overruling a judgment call. It was a protest. There had been lots of protests prior to the Pine Tar Game (not on that specific rule, but on other interpretations) and what the AL did was consistent with established practice. (There was a protest accepted a few years after that, too, concerning a game called for rain that shouldn’t have been.) Furthermore, the league was, at least in my reading of the rules, totally correct in the pine tar incident; the ump called Brett out despite the fact that nothing in the rules said a player could be called out for that.
Selig reversing a judgment call, however, would have been wholly unprecedented. He still should have done it, I believe, but it wasn’t equivalent to the Pine Tar Game.
On CNBC
Erin Burnett: “I thought it was handled so beautifully that it was a more memorable moment for its failure perhaps than its success, I don’t know, maybe a little sentimental.”
Mark Haines: “See, this is why women aren’t in charge of sports.”
I can’t help wondering what Bud Selig must think of people who profess not to understand the difference between a (questionable) judgment call and a mis-application of the rules.
That you speak of postseason “seedings,” a term that is never used in Major League Baseball, tells me you don’t know much about the sport.
That you can’t see a difference between the 27th out of a ball game and all the outs that have preceded it in terms of “alternate timelines” – despite a clear explanation – confirms it.
I’ve heard several justifications for reversing the call and awarding Galarraga a perfect game and I can agree with some of them but I don’t agree with your particular reason as you’ve laid it out because it’s a mess of inconsistent logic. At least some of the other pundits admit some level of human bias in their defense of Galaragga. However, for some reason, you deny your human bias and continue to believe your explanation is a magnificent example of an airtight proof. It is not.
Well that’s funny. Here’s an SI article with the title: American League dominates my 2009 playoff-team seedings
The fact that the seedings are automatically determined (based on record), doesn’t mean that the playoffs aren’t seeded. The term may not be overly common, but it’s a perfectly acceptable way to talk about how they determine who plays who and who has home field for the playoffs.
I’m not sure what sort of “gotcha” moment you believe you’ve introduced to the argument with your term “human bias,” and I don’t really care. I don’t deny the term; I ignore it as irrelevant. Baseball fans are most certainly human, after all.
The ruling should be changed “for the good of the game” (a power that the Commissioner can wield at any time, if only he has the guts…not something we’ll see in the course of the present commissioner’s term).
Your arguments against mine are, IMHO, “a mess” and add nothing to the discussion. What happened on the field in real life (as opposed to what was called), at that particular juncture of the game, in the context of the history of baseball, is more than enough justification for changing the ruling.
Your references to “alternate timelines” and “artificial boundaries between the 27th and 28th batters” are nothing but obfuscating bulllshit. Unlike any AB that may have preceded it, if the 27th batter in a perfect game makes an out and it is called correctly by the umpire, there IS no 28th batter.
In a perfect game, a correct call on the 27th out takes on a greater importance – not only greater than any previous call in that game, but also a greater importance than it would in almost any other game, when Major League history is not on the line.
Phil Rogers from the Chicago Tribune this weekend argues against reversing the call. Though I don’t buy the “slippery slope” argument (the Commissioner can say NO to any and all subsequent requests, if he has a spine), I like and respect Rogers and can agree to disagree with him and anyone who holds this view.
But this first sentence of the article speaks volumes to me:
Whether Bud Selig made the correct decision in this particular case is a matter of opinion, but this points out what I feel has been Selig’s biggest problem during his tenure: He has a tin ear when it comes to listening and understanding what the fans want. Without fans there’s no league, and Selig has always had an uncanny knack for alienating us time and time again.
