Perfectly Awful...

I suppose by now everyone has heard how this ump blew a call with two outs in the 9th  inning of a baseball game that took away a PERFECT game from Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers. 

The call wasn’t even close.

The runner was out by a good step.

I’d really like to know what was said in the conversation between Ump Jim Joyce and Manager Jim Leyland!

The nice thing about conspiracy theories is that you get to pick and choose the facts that support your theory!

So here’s my theory (that it is).

There have already been not one but TWO perfect games this year in Major League Baseball.  PLUS a no hitter.

Imagine you are running the league.

For the past decade you have been fighting off the rumors that steroids have inflated all the offensive stats.  Several players have admitted to using drugs to enhance their production.  You’ve tried to convince the public that you are doing everything you can to test the players and that the problem is not as bad as the media has made it out to be.

Now you have pitchers just dominating the hitters.

Eventually the whispers will start again that it was all the steroids that caused the big home run numbers.

So if an ump has a chance to stop it with a “close” call…shouldn’t he?  I mean if it had been "suggested"?

Now IF this is what happened MLB STILL managed to screw it up by doing it with two outs in the 9th inning!  LOL!  I didn’t see the game so I have no idea if there was anything else that was that close where they could have made a “bad” call though.

At least the ump came out and faced the media.

But if this doesn’t show how baseball needs some sort of instant replay nothing else does.

The technology is readily available and what’s another five minutes per challenge to a game that gets delayed that long after almost every pitch sometimes!

At the very least that ump needs to be disciplined.  I understand that humans make mistakes, but anything so glaring that EVERYONE knows its wrong needs to be handled differently.  Because now he is going to heitiate when making calls for fear of making such a big blunder again.  Which is why the umps are gainst instant replay…they don’t want to have people second guessing their decisions on the field.  They would rather they be WRONG!

The governor of Michigan has come out in support of Galarraga and the guy took it as well as you can expect, but if anyone wonders why baseball is sinking in popularity they should just look at this one game, one call, and see it.

Of course Commissioner Bud Selig will find a way to screw it up even more probably!

It’s a game that wants to pretend its still nineteen-ought-nine.

That kind of denial you usually only find in Washington….

~ Glenn