Galaragga's Perfect Game Done In By Umps Gag-a-Paloosa Call

At least the umpire admits and regrets his mistake.

First baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded Jason Donald's grounder to his right and made an accurate throw to Galarraga covering the bag. The ball was there in time, and all of Comerica Park was ready to celebrate the 3-0 victory over Cleveland until Joyce emphatically signaled safe -- a decision he soon regretted.

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the --- out of it," Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game. I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

Detroit manager Jim Leyland immediately argued the call and was joined by several of his players after the final out. Galarraga (2-1) was trying for the 21st perfect game in major league history and third in a month.

Galarraga looked stunned after the botched call, then quietly went back to work as the crowd of 17,738 started to boo.

IT WASN'T EVEN CLOSE!



Gretchen Carlson, Miss America 1989, had a good solution which could have resolved the umpire's error; she said, "he (the runner) should have called himself out". He point being that the runner knew he was not safe, he could have preserved the perfect game by acknowledging that the umpire was wrong. I am not sure that the rules of baseball would have allowed the ump to change his call even when the overturned call is endorsed by the opposing player; but I like the concept. In fact, I have argued more than once for letting basketball players call their own fouls, taking the referee out of the game. Of course, neither in basketball, nor in baseball would such a system work, the greedy aspect of human nature would prevail, and differences of opinion would supplant sportsmanship; referees and umpires were invented because players have no perspective during the course of play after all. Later Carlson accepted the implausibility of her proposal and the use of replay was mentioned as a realist manner to avoid officials errors.