One day, after Robot Chad Henne completes his conquest of human civilization, we will finally see Major League Baseball replace umpires with robots. When that happens, shit like this will cease.
And anyone wishing to carp about the necessity of the human element in baseball officiating can eat a bag of dicks, as the kids were saying not too long ago.
Rant over.
I feel compelled to give my two cents. Actually, it's more of a summation of portions of other people's two cents. First, the call. Jim Joyce missed it entirely, but that happens more often than you'd like to think, only usually it does so on plays that are not the last out of a perfect game. Armando Gallaraga should be commended for his level-headedness about the entire thing, he deserves all the praise he has received for that. Joyce, to his credit, owned up to his mistake, and that's enough for me. He's not the first umpire to make a mistake, and he shouldn't be penalized for an unavoidable (in the abstract) human error (regardless of what the Wikipedia trolls think). In fact, the most surprising aspect of Joyce's gaffe to me was that it has only happened once before in such a high-leverage situation (I am of course referring to Don Denkinger's blown call at first base in the 1985 World Series, which was much more high-leverage than last night's error since it came in the playoffs). Denkinger continued to work after the incident.
As for what MLB should do, retroactively changing the call to an out seems a bit much, since it sets an unwieldy precedent. Also, as Dan LeBatard noted, "Commissioner Bud Selig can overturn the ruling, as he may, but it doesn't bring back the joy. The moment has been forever stolen by human error." However, someone else (I forget who) suggested on Twitter that MLB change the single on the play to an error (under the aussumption - an incorrect one, but whatevs - that if Gallaraga missed the bag with his foot). This would preserve the no-hitter, which doesn't seem like much of a consolation, but it's better than nothing, right? [UPDATE - MLB will not reverse the call.]
On the plus side, it appears this incident could lead to the implementation of expanded use of instant replay. While this won't solve everything, it would certainly be a step in the right direction.
That's all for now, back to our usual Marlins hand-wringing shortly...
Actual text message I received during last night's game:
to quote earl weaver: the ump and his crew are here just to fuck us!Nothing like a losing streak...
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