Oh My Goodness Jim Joyce, No!

You don’t have to tell him, he knows it. “I just cost that kid a perfect game,” said Joyce in an interview after the infamous play in which Joyce called Cleveland’s Jason Donald safe, when the replays clearly showed that Donald was in fact out. When asked about it later, Joyce said that he thought that Donald was safe at the time, but when he saw the replay, he knew he was wrong. However, Joyce did something that a lot of other umpires would not have done (at least publicly); he admitted that he was wrong. He went up to Armando Galarraga after he saw the replay and apologized for missing the call. He apologized again in a press conference, and again admitted that he had been wrong. He said that the call is the biggest in his career.

This is why we need two things to happen; one is for Major League Baseball to institute instant replay into the game. The other is for Bud Selig to exercise his power and overturn the call, thus giving Galarraga his much deserved perfect game. Jim Joyce is respected by managers and players alike, and should not be remembered for something like this. Both Joyce and Galarraga showed the utmost class in the way that they handled the situation. Joyce said that he wouldn’t have been surprised if Galarraga would have been in his face after the call, but you know what? Galarraga wasn’t. He trotted right back to the mound, and made the next out. I don’t who we should feel worse for. However, it doesn’t have to end like this. Bud Selig, you have the power to use “the best interests of the game” clause in order to make this right. Overturn the call. This isn’t setting a precedent; rather, it would allow a kid to take his rightful place in history, and it would allow one of your league’s classiest umpires, one who does not deserve the hateful things from all of the people on social networking sites bashing his reputation, to be forgiven for being a human being. For making a mistake.

Another reason that this will not set a precedent is because this won’t have to happen again if instant replay is instituted into the game. Major League Baseball is the only major sport left that does not use instant replay to aid its officials in the call-making process. Imagine how many football, basketball, or tennis matches would be controversial had those sports not instituted instant replay into their game. Don Denkinger sure as hell agrees that baseball needs instant replay, and I’m sure that Jim Joyce would support it as well. Instant replay wouldn’t hurt the sacredness of the game of baseball; rather, losing the 21st perfect game due to the fact that instant replay isn’t used hurts the sacredness of baseball.

In lighter news (or not, depending on how you look at it), Ken Griffey Jr. announced that he is officially retiring. If it had not been for Jim Joyce’s call, this may have been the biggest story of the day. Griffey Jr. is one of the best players of his era, and possibly of all-time. He was a classy guy, and as far as we know, everything he did was done clean. Years from now, when we look back at the steroid era, there will be one guy that exemplifies those great players that did it right. That guy will be Ken Griffey Jr. I still remember playing Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest on my N64, and I can tell you, I’m going to miss the guy with the backwards hat who could hit almost any pitch out of the park. So long, Kid.

Tomorrow I will begin my breakdown of the World Cup by covering Groups A and B. I will continue to cover two groups per day, and on the final day, I will give my predictions on who will be hoisting the Cup in July. If there are any big stories that I feel I should cover in addition to the World Cup preview, then I will start the post with that news. Thanks guys.

– K. Becks