ARMANDO GALARRAGA—THE NEED FOR REPLAY. Dick Weisfelder e mailed me to urge me to post on a baseball game that ended a short time ago. I have posted a number of times, including here, on the need for baseball to use replay as much as it can. Dick realized immediately that I would leap at the chance to argue that what happened tonight shows the need for replay. Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was within one out of a perfect game. (For you non-baseball fans, in a perfect game, nobody on the other team gets on base. It is a very rare accomplishment.) The last batter grounded to second base and was out by a step—but the umpire blew the call, and there was no perfect game. Here is the play. Notice that in the time it takes for a brief argument, replay would have shown the correct call.
A wonderful thing about the video is Galarraga’s smile after he realizes what has happened. A real competitor and sportsman.
I find Galarraga’s rueful smile heart-breaking. And the umpire who blew the call is sick over it. So why isn’t this easily reversed? I know there are logical consequences, but a perfect game is nothing to be so easily thrown away for the sake of celebrating human error.
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