By Jordan Long
Major League Baseball is still waiting to return. The regular season hasn’t started due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. MLB is talking about a way for it to come back safely in July. There is MLB news though and has to do with a game played ten years ago.
On June 2nd, 2010, the Detroit Tigers took on the Cleveland Indians. Detroit’s pitcher Armando Galarraga pitched one of the best games of his career. He went into the top of the 9th inning with a perfect game on the line. Galarraga was able to retire the first two batters of the inning. One was a fly ball while the other was a ground out. The next batter was Jason Donald. He swung and hit a ground ball towards 2nd base. 1st baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded the ball and threw to Galarraga who clearly stepped on the base before Donald. Game over right? Nope. MLB umpire Jim Joyce called him safe which ruined the perfect game.
Replay was not used in Major League Baseball in 2010. If it was, the call would have been reversed, giving Galarraga a perfect game. Once the game was over, Joyce looked at the replay and realized his mistake. According to newsfeed.time.com, Joyce said, “I just cost that kid a perfect game,”
Now Galarraga wants MLB to overturn Joyce’s blown call and make it a perfect game. Even Joyce agrees it should happen. According to CBSsports.com, Galarraga stated, “I was like, what can I do to have a better finish to the story? How can Major League Baseball give me the perfect game? Because it was perfect, right?”
The problem with doing this is it happened ten years ago. The game is in the books as a 1 hitter. Sure it should have been a perfect game but that is not how it went. If MLB decides to change the ruling of a ten year old baseball game, it makes little sense. That would mean teams may complain about no hitters where a call was blown. Then MLB may have to change those games. They need to keep this as a one hitter even though the replay clearly shows it was a perfect game.
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