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Tigers' Armando Galarraga was perfect, umpire Jim Joyce was not
More than perfect, it appeared to be immaculate.
It was the umpire who, from all indications Wednesday night at Comerica Park, was imperfect.
Jim Joyce missed the call -- at a moment Hollywood's best, brightest, and most imaginative scriptwriters would have had an impossible time matching.
Armando Galarraga's pitches Wednesday night were unblemished beyond perfection.
A right-hand pitcher from Venezuela, 28 years old, and so undistinguished in baseball's annals that he returned from the minor leagues only two weeks ago, came within one batter -- and one blown call -- from becoming the 21st man in big-league history to throw that wondrous, inexplicable, supernatural event known as a perfect game.
It all fell apart, a celestial moment blowing up in a moment of apparent human frailty, when with two outs in the ninth, Jason Donald hit a ground ball between first and second base that Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded far off the bag.
Cabrera waited for a moment as Galarraga barreled toward first, his masterpiece a few feet away.
He took the throw. He stepped on the bag. Donald's foot followed a split-second later.
Safe, yelled Joyce.
The Mona Lisa had just been doused with mud.
The Tigers argued, bitterly, and almost to a point of fisticuffs, with Joyce after Galarraga retired the final Indians batter in a 3-0 Tigers victory.
But it was too late. Replays confirmed Joyce's blunder.
That close, that near, to utter baseball perfection.
Ruined in a nanosecond by an umpire who thought he was making the right call, and who tonight is likely dealing with anguish that surpasses Galarraga's or the Tigers' hearbreak and ire.
No pitcher in 110 seasons of Tigers baseball had ever thrown a perfect game, all because the achievement is so astoundingly difficult to execute, and as Wednesday confirmed, to even comprehend.
But whatever the explanation Galarraga was to offer later Wednesday, it was clear this night was from a different galaxy of consciousness and performance.
Galarraga entered his day of fame as a semi-forgettable pitcher with a career record of 20-18.
He would not have been the first, or second, or third, or even fourth, choice in the Tigers' starting rotation to throw a perfect game, or to come within a flawed out of one.
But what baseball offers us is a constant reminder of its possibilities, just as it rejects all assumptions.
Galarraga's skills enabled him to pitch in the major leagues. Wednesday, those skills, coupled with something deep and so interior that he might spend a lifetime searching for its source, combined in cosmic fashion.
Until that last, glorious, history-etching moment was stolen from him.
Galarraga faced 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians batters before the catastrophe at first base.
He was able to overpower, or to lure, them into 26 consecutive outs.
He neither allowed the line drive, or the hot grounder, that in any game goes, repeatedly, for a single. There were no doubles, nor a triple, nor a home run.
There was not even a walk.
Two times there were close calls, just to remind us this was a human being, after all, throwing a baseball Wednesday.
Mark Grudzielanek hit a titanic smash to deep left-center field leading off the eighth.
It landed in the glove of Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson, who had his own Dewayne Wise moment. (The White Sox center fielder made a spectacular catch to save Mark Buehrle's perfect game last summer.)
In the fifth, Russell Branyan ripped a hard grounder off Galarraga's glove that deflected toward shortstop. Brandon Inge glided across the grass, snagged the ball, and fired to first for a put-out that sent Galarraga to the sixth with his gem intact.
Not until Grudzielanek's drive was hauled in by Jackson was he even in danger of showing so much as a crack in his pitching performance Wednesday.
Until that 27th batter, of course, was ruled safe.
The perfect game was still intact.
It's only the record books that will say otherwise.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...#ixzz0pkiCVZpc
More than perfect, it appeared to be immaculate.
It was the umpire who, from all indications Wednesday night at Comerica Park, was imperfect.
Jim Joyce missed the call -- at a moment Hollywood's best, brightest, and most imaginative scriptwriters would have had an impossible time matching.
Armando Galarraga's pitches Wednesday night were unblemished beyond perfection.
A right-hand pitcher from Venezuela, 28 years old, and so undistinguished in baseball's annals that he returned from the minor leagues only two weeks ago, came within one batter -- and one blown call -- from becoming the 21st man in big-league history to throw that wondrous, inexplicable, supernatural event known as a perfect game.
It all fell apart, a celestial moment blowing up in a moment of apparent human frailty, when with two outs in the ninth, Jason Donald hit a ground ball between first and second base that Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded far off the bag.
Cabrera waited for a moment as Galarraga barreled toward first, his masterpiece a few feet away.
He took the throw. He stepped on the bag. Donald's foot followed a split-second later.
Safe, yelled Joyce.
The Mona Lisa had just been doused with mud.
The Tigers argued, bitterly, and almost to a point of fisticuffs, with Joyce after Galarraga retired the final Indians batter in a 3-0 Tigers victory.
But it was too late. Replays confirmed Joyce's blunder.
That close, that near, to utter baseball perfection.
Ruined in a nanosecond by an umpire who thought he was making the right call, and who tonight is likely dealing with anguish that surpasses Galarraga's or the Tigers' hearbreak and ire.
No pitcher in 110 seasons of Tigers baseball had ever thrown a perfect game, all because the achievement is so astoundingly difficult to execute, and as Wednesday confirmed, to even comprehend.
But whatever the explanation Galarraga was to offer later Wednesday, it was clear this night was from a different galaxy of consciousness and performance.
Galarraga entered his day of fame as a semi-forgettable pitcher with a career record of 20-18.
He would not have been the first, or second, or third, or even fourth, choice in the Tigers' starting rotation to throw a perfect game, or to come within a flawed out of one.
But what baseball offers us is a constant reminder of its possibilities, just as it rejects all assumptions.
Galarraga's skills enabled him to pitch in the major leagues. Wednesday, those skills, coupled with something deep and so interior that he might spend a lifetime searching for its source, combined in cosmic fashion.
Until that last, glorious, history-etching moment was stolen from him.
Galarraga faced 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians batters before the catastrophe at first base.
He was able to overpower, or to lure, them into 26 consecutive outs.
He neither allowed the line drive, or the hot grounder, that in any game goes, repeatedly, for a single. There were no doubles, nor a triple, nor a home run.
There was not even a walk.
Two times there were close calls, just to remind us this was a human being, after all, throwing a baseball Wednesday.
Mark Grudzielanek hit a titanic smash to deep left-center field leading off the eighth.
It landed in the glove of Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson, who had his own Dewayne Wise moment. (The White Sox center fielder made a spectacular catch to save Mark Buehrle's perfect game last summer.)
In the fifth, Russell Branyan ripped a hard grounder off Galarraga's glove that deflected toward shortstop. Brandon Inge glided across the grass, snagged the ball, and fired to first for a put-out that sent Galarraga to the sixth with his gem intact.
Not until Grudzielanek's drive was hauled in by Jackson was he even in danger of showing so much as a crack in his pitching performance Wednesday.
Until that 27th batter, of course, was ruled safe.
The perfect game was still intact.
It's only the record books that will say otherwise.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...#ixzz0pkiCVZpc
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