shutime

Major League Baseball has been filled with glorious triumphs and all-too-often unexplainable miracles that win a game at the last second in the most dramatic way possible. Think of David Freese’s 2011 World Series Game 6 or Kirk Gibson’s ’88 World Series Game 1.

It has also been filled with its share of heartbreak. This makes me think of Jose Fernandez or Lou Gehrig’s speech.

But there’s a very specific type of moment in baseball that rears its ugly head every once in awhile. Those moments where an umpire calls an egregiously large strike zone for one team, and a minuscule one in the next half inning. A player who clearly beats a tag gets called out.

Thankfully with replay review these terribly unfair moments are far less common.

I recently had a conversation with a coworker about how much baseball has changed since the ability to challenge calls came around. Skippers can now demand that an umpire watch a video of a call and review his previous decision. Thankfully, this technology prevents days like June 2, 2010 from happening again.

Recently Domingo German threw the 24th perfect game in Major League history. This amazing moment was marked with plenty of reminders of a completely different game, between different teams, in a different city, 13 years earlier.

On June 2, 2010, Tiger’s pitcher Armando Galarraga faced and retired 26 straight Cleveland Indian batters. At the time, there had only been 20 perfect games in baseball history. 13 years later in 2023, there’s only been 24.

There are 20 more people living today that were born before 1911 than men who have pitched a perfect game.

Pitching a perfect game is the holy grail of pitching in Major League Baseball. Sure, there’s Cy Young’s, MVP’s, and World Series Shutouts. But nothing solidifies a spot in baseball history like a perfect game. When German threw his perfect game this year, the final out ball and hat he wore went straight to the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.

German will likely forever be remembered for this one day which is incredible considering the very average career he’s had otherwise.

Armando Galarraga’s day was very different. With 2 outs in the top of the ninth, Galarraga wound up and threw his 83rd pitch to Indians’ Jason Donald. This 83rd pitch would have marked the fewest number of pitches in a perfect game ever. Donald grounded the ball over to first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who threw it back to Galarraga in motion. Galarraga proceeed to step on first base, about half a second before the runner Donald did the same. Cabrera and Galarraga smiled as they both turned to first base umpire Jim Joyce, ready to celebrate. Joyce threw his hands to the side and aggressively signaled “safe”.

Just like that, no perfect game. No more no hitter. No history made. At least not the good kind.

Immediately after the terrible call was made, video replay showed that Donald was clearly out. Jim Joyce saw the replay and knew it, Galarraga knew it, America knew it.

The game has since been called the “imperfect game” and despite the very clear video replay we have of the play, it still stands as a complete game shutout with one hit against.

But maybe there’s a case to change this call 13 years later. It may seem crazy to do so and plenty of people will disagree with me but I would argue it makes sense.

We have absolute conclusive, 100% assurance that the runner was out. Why shouldn’t we change the ruling and honor Galarraga’s perfect game? Which it was by the way.

The way I see it, there’s only two reasons this would be a bad idea:

1. We now have to change Jason Donald’s hit to an out. Thus changing Donald’s career hits, AVG, SLG, OPS, etc. Also changing Donald’s career SB (he stole 2nd and 3rd on subsequent pitches). Changing Cabrera’s career Assists. Changing Galarraga’s batters faced and outs. Changing the next hitter, Trevor Crowe’s, career AVG, SLG, OPS. We then must retroactively correct each of the last four perfect games from the 21st-24th to the 22nd-25th perfect games in order.

2. We now have to seriously consider changing x amount of different historical moments in baseball history. The most prime example: Don Denkinger’s blown call at first in the ’85 World Series. Reversing this one has far more consequence. If Jorge Orta is called out, Steve Balboni’s single to LF makes him the tying run (Which he technically ended up being because of a force play at third base but stay with me). Then, with Balboni being the lone runner on first, it’s less likely that Jim Sundberg sacrifice bunts. But because he hit .245 in 1985, it’s fairly likely he makes an out. Maybe the Cardinals still intentionally walk Hal McRae and maybe they don’t. That’s where it gets really tricky. Do we assume Hal McRae would have scored on Iorg’s single to LF? I don’t think we can assume any of this.

So, I believe correcting moments in baseball history is a bad idea. The one exception to this just may be Galarraga’s perfect game. It’s the only one without drastic circumstances. Yes, changing all these statistics would be annoying but it doesn’t have the butterfly effect that changing a blown World Series call does.

I don’t think this moment will ever be changed. While I think it should be, it would probably create more unforeseen problems moving forward and seriously affect the future of baseball.

Here’s the definitive solution. Major League Baseball should honor Galarraga in a greater way then they have. Without changing any statistics, they can choose to recognize the game as a perfect game. Or choose to especially recognize it as the 28 out perfect game. I also don’t see an issue with putting Galarraga in the history books as the 21st perfect game pitcher. Why can’t we officially recognize it without changing the statistics?

This is the only solution that doesn’t affect baseball history, the present, or the future of baseball in a potentially negative way.

It’s time to give Armando Galarraga his flowers, baseball.