The "best" part about Joyce's call
First off, let me say that Joyce COMPLETELY SCREWED THE POOCH on that call. You have to get that one correct. He screwed over A.G. hard core on that.
But the best part of that call is that he sat there with 2 outs in the ninth and attempted to make the correct call, even if the entire Comerica Park crowd was going to hate his guts. There's no way he was safe but he thought he saw it that way. So he made the call--allbeit the wrong one. How many umpires would think to themselves "There's no way he's not going to get it because of me so if it's close, he's out."
Joyce is getting killed today and rightfully so for the bad call, but at least he did what he thought was right at the time. And then to make himself available to the media afterwards was a decent thing to do. He could've stayed quiet but manned up and admitted his mistake.
Galarraga handled the entire situation with total class. I'm a big fan of his for the way he handled it.
is that it gave us something else to bitch about other than sanctions, expansion, and eligibilities.
I think that given a potentially explosive situation, Joyce and Galarraga both handled themselves very professionally. I especially like Galarraga's quote about Joyce's blowing the call: "Nobody's perfect." Intentional or not, this is a well-turned and apropos phrase.
He could've stayed quiet but manned up and admitted his mistake.
You're absolutely right. It really sucks to be him right now. I was doing some research early yesterday because of one of Formerly Anonymous' posts about his Sports bucket list. He mentioned wanting to be an umpire.
Becoming an umpire is much more difficult than you realize. It can take quite a few years. In fact, there are only 68 umpires in the major leagues. People are calling for his head, but how many mistakes have you made in your job? I mean I agree with the above, that I'd be guilty of the "if it's cloes, he's out", which really isn't the right way to call it. He did what he thought was right, and it just so happened to be wrong. It could be worse, that could have been a decisive moment of a WS game.
I'll be willing to bet that something good comes out of all this.
How often will basketball officials allow a mugging on the last play of the game so they aren't the ones who changed the outcome? How many times are clear penalties not given in soccer matches because the ref can't handle the pressure? THAT CALL WAS CLEARLY WRONG, but it took guts to make it...
Mr. Sims was fairly blatantly held on the final play against MSU, if memory serves me correctly. Nothing resembling a whistle.
ask a state fan, deshawn pushed off before summers grabbed him...
But you shouldn't ask a State fan.
if you're Laimbeer guarding Abdul-Jabbar in LA.
Edit: I wanted this to follow RichRodFollower, but messed up somehow.
That was a HORRIBLE call if I have ever seen one. However when I first saw it in regular speed I thought Donald was safe untill the replay showed it in slow motion and man oh man, NOT EVEN CLOSE to being safe. Shit happens Tigers fans at least Joyce made a public apology that he messed up that show's some class on his part. I honestly really could give a flying care less about that division though. My Cardinals won so no bitching here.
How many umpires would think to themselves "There's no way he's not going to get it because of me so if it's close, he's out."
That's what he should have thought. Then he wouldn't be in this mess right now. Especially the play in question wasn't all that close.
I have to say, everyone involved is handling it extremely well. Galarrage, Joyce, Leyland, etc. It's really, really hard to hate Joyce over this. Can't muster it up, the poor guy sounds like he wants to jump off a bridge. This is the difference between baseball and other sports. When's the last time you heard any other referee admit a blown call or non-call?
So fuck you, cruel fate. Fuck you sideways. Even a World Series championship is awarded every year. Which I think we're owed by the gods right now.
I'm saddened that he made the wrong call, but I'm not mad at him - he obviously didn't intend to, and feels terrible about it now.
Being an umpire/referee is a weird gig. You're either anonymous to 99.9% of the sporting public or hated. Joyce has been a MLB ump 21 years and apparently is considered very good at his job, and I'd never heard of him before this.
I don't hate the guy, it's just a game, not life or death. I do however hate the way he handled the situation.
It was a really fast play, but with the play being that close with a perfect game on the line, how in the world do you make that call? The guys on MLB Network agreed that it was a horrible call but were also saying that Joyce isn't a "look at me" type ump. I believe them, but for the life of me, I can't help but wonder if that was a "look at me" call.
It also looked like he was going to call the runner out at first, but then switched up his call mid call. If he was unsure, why not conference with the rest of the umps and make the right call? He made the call, after being unsure, and didn't ask for any help. So he admits his mistake after the game, but couldn't do it during the game? I think that's the most disappointing thing to me.
All in all, Galarraga put it best; nobody is perfect. We're all human, we all make mistakes.
I hope Selig does the right thing, not only for Galarraga, but for Joyce and his family. I will actually feel really bad for the guy for what he's going to go through if Selig doesn't change the call.
A conference with the other umps could have saved all this.
Edit: I heard an interview with Jim Joyce and Joyce was asked about a conference and dismissed it. Evidently, they don't conference on such calls as a matter of policy.
Ed Hochuli did it within the last couple years. Early in the season, he blew dead a fumble he shouldn't have, it lead to the Broncos beating the Chargers.
Hochuli took his beatings like a man, responded to just about every letter of hate mail, owned up to the mistacke, apologized and asked for forgiveness.
Also, Karma (blind luck? whatever) rewarded him when the Broncos and Chargers met the last game of the season with the winner taking the division (so his game-changing call ended up NOT being season changing)
The guy below said it, Galarraga handled this the best he could, the little smile, heading back to the mound, getting an out, and saying "I didn't throw a perfect game in the record book, but guess what, I'll always remember pitching this perfect game"
Last night i thought my head was going to explode with anger. But after hearing Joyce apologize, its hard for me to hate him
David Stern would have made the call before the final batter, and then radioed it into everyone.
How many umpires would think to themselves "There's no way he's not going to get it because of me so if it's close, he's out."
Let me preface by saying that I am a Cardinals fan, so the actual outcome of any given AL game rarely bothers me. However, as a fan of sports in general and feel-good stories within them, I take a bit of issue with this statement because I think Joyce should have thought this way. Examine the two "wrong call" scenarios.
Scenario 1: Joyce accidentally calls the runner safe when he was out. A firestorm ensues, and a kid loses out on what could be his only chance for perfection in his career (let's face it, even if he continues to pitch very well, perfect games are a once-in-a-lifetime type achievement for even top level pitchers).
Scenario 2: Joyce accidentally calls the runner out when he was safe. A batter gets one extra hit added to his career, and the Indians still probably lose since there would be 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th down by 3 (in reality, since the runner was called safe and the next one was out we know for sure this call would not have affected the game but we can assume the ump has know way of knowing that ahead of time). At worst, this call "costs" the Indians an improbable comeback in one regular season game out of 162.
While giving the perfect game to the pitcher if the runner was CLEARLY safe would obviously cheapen the achievment, if there was any play remotely close (even if the ump thought the runner might have been safe but there was any seed of doubt) the consideration of what is at stake should really play a large role. There's something to be said for guts but in my opinion making a call in complete vacuum is not always the right way to handle business (and I'd never be able to ref anything because of it).
which is more than most umps probably would've done. I hope this serves as acatalyst for instant replay, though. I can't imagaine football without replay now that it is there. And though there is less of a need for it in baseball for the most part, since the technology is is there, Bud Selig should make sure nothing even close to this ever happens again.
Even as a mild Indians fan (though I don't care about them nearly as much as I do about my main team, the Red Sox), I am a goddamn American baseball fan and I hate what happened. That was the 3rd perfect game of the season and my god did Joyce blow it.
Nevertheless, I do feel for Joyce. Yes, I know that making a mistake is part of the territory, but would you want to be him right now?
So, I dragged my son out of bed last night to watch the last inning, and there are a few lessons that I hope he will learn from the behavior of the people involved:
1) Galaragga's reaction to the blown call is perhaps the greatest example to children of how to handle disappointment. He didn't rant, he didn't pout, he climbed back up the mound and got the 28th out carrying himself as a man with perspective.
2) I want him to read Joyce's statements - this is how you take responsibility for your actions. No excuses, no effort to shift blame - he completely owned his error.
3) I want him to hear what Galaragga plans to show and tell his own son - that he pitched a perfect game, no matter what the record books show. He does not need the external validation of his accomplishment recorded elsewhere - he knows what he did, and can hold his head high.
elevating sports figures as "role models", but it is great when you see real quality character traits on display in the middle of adversity.
I don't think that he got the 28th out.
I seriously don't get how this day in age we don't have replay for crap like this. It's not even a "did he tag him" situation - it's a bang-bang thing. We have the technology and it'd take all of a couple mins to figure it out (i.e. the amount of time wasted by the next batter casually strolling to the batters box). People complain about how long replay takes in football because, comparitively speaking, it's a fast paced game. Baseball on the other hand can either be a 3 hour game or a 4 hour game just because there are more hits or half the team has to readjust their cup after every single pitch. It's already a slow game so adding maybe 10 mins to the whole thing isn't going to hurt anything.
Make it like college football, they all get reviewed upstairs and then the coaches get a challenge - the emphasis should really be on making the right call not "keeping the human element" (i.e. it's ok that's it's obviously wrong, it's only a multi-billion dollar business...)
If Joyce wasn't so worried proving what a great umpire he was by not giving Galarraga and the Tigers a freebie he never would have been in this situation. You can even see him mouthing to Cabrerra afterwards, "What did you want me to do? Give it to him?"
Joyce was more worried about not giving it to him than he was about just making the right call. In trying to prove that he just wasn't going to call the runner out no matter what, he overcompensated, and, as a result, made one of the worst calls in the history of professional sports.
This guy made his own bed, now he has to lie in it.
I agree, and it's too bad.
Joyce is a great ump who has had a great career... who will be known for one of the most horrid calls in baseball history (not only making the wrong call... but blowing a perfect game... in the face of the unwritten baseball rule --- if it's close in that situation --- he's out!).
he will be known as:
1) The ump that ruined a Perfect Game
2) The ump that wrongully denying a 3rd Perfect Game in 1 season -- would have been one of the greatest Baseball stats of all times (with the Tigers as part of that history)
3) The ump that make the bad call that led to instant replay
4) The Bill Buckner of Umpires
5) The most hated man in the history of Comerica Park
5) The most hated man in the history of Comerica Park
More than Joe Nathan? Yeah, I guess I can see that...
What about Juan Gonzalez?
I went to bed last night if the official scorer could classify the hit as an error on either Miggy or Armando so that at least he gets no-no. If Joyce's thinking when making the original call was the he (Galarraga) missed the bag, that would seem to be at least a tiny bit justifiable...
Joyce has already said that he just thought the runner beat the throw ... in his mind, there was no bobble, there was no miss of the bag.
I'd have no problem with it if the official scorer said, gee, I think there was a bobble on the play, I'm changing the scoring to E-3. The whole world could see there wasn't, but errors vs. hits are judgment calls just like the others and I think people would just nod and wink if the scorer did that.
When there's a weak chopper to first on the last hitter of the perfect game, you have to call the guy out if it's even close. You have to make the hitter earn a hit. So I don't applaud Joyce for making the tough call. I will applaud him for handling his mistake like a man and a pro and I feel bad for him.
Agreed. Full marks for taking accountability, but that doesn't change that Joyce was so intent on making the "tough call" that he completely forgot about making the right call.
When there's a weak chopper to first on the last hitter of the perfect game, you have to call the guy out if it's even close.
This is inherently wrong and an insult to the game. You call him out if he's out. You call him safe if he's safe. Joyce obviously missed the call, but he was trying to do the right thing.
I fully expect then that Mr. Joyce will begin calling runners safe at second on force outs when the SS or 2B is five feet off the bag. After all, you call him out if he's out and safe if he's safe.
There are unwritten rules in baseball. This guy Joyce has been around long enough to know that on the last out of a no-hitter or perfect game, the other team has to earn it. Anything close and you are siding with the pitcher. The sad thing is that it wasn't even close.
Mr. Joyce was not trying to do the right thing. The right thing to do would have been to follow the unwritten rules. Had he done that, 99% of Americans would have never even heard of Jim Joyce, which is the hallmark of a good official. Instead of following the unwritten rules, he chose to put himself above the game, and for that he will always be known as the umpire that blew the perfect game.
FWIW, I've never been a fan of the "phantom tag" at second base. I've seen a few umpires call the runner at second safe on those plays, and I'm always happy when they do.
Unwritten rules are dumb, especially when it comes to officiating a game.
But what is the "right thing", and how is it defined? The right thing to Joyce was to call the Indian safe, but to Galarraga and a large subset of baseball fans, the right thing was to call a somewhat-close play at first base an out to preserve a perfect game. Yet, Joyce's mistaken belief in what is right is the only thing that matters in this equation, while the "right thing" to millions of others is ignored. That doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.
I know that human error is a part of the game, but other sports have found a way to incorporate the use of instant replay to correct wrongs without destroying the sanctity of the game. Getting the "right call" makes far more sense than upholding the wrong call just for the sake of being true to some notion of fairness in the game.
Also, as this article pointed out, MLB has already removed 50 no-hitters from the record books because of various inaccuracies or mistakes, so it's not like correcting for human errors is something new. I'm sure that the umps and players involved in those 50 games thought they did the "right thing", and yet nobody seems particularly bothered that history was revised to account for the truth.
I'm fine with instant replay. Go ahead and institute it. From then on, use it to fix incorrect calls.
In the meantime, use the rules that are in place.
Good post, SpreadGuru. I've gained respect for Jim Joyce based on the way he handled this situation.