Frontpage Features

BY SCREAMIN' LEEMAN

The game of baseball is, and always has been, as pure and natural as the driven snow.   The dirt, the grass, the leather, the wood.  Why, you could even call it organic (maybe that's why they charge nine dollars for a beer).  Is there anyone among us who has never slapped the leather of a fine glove, or felt the comforting warmth of a rubbed-up baseball?

Baseball is inherent in all of us, it has touched everyone in one way or another since we were born.

Everything that happens on a baseball field feels like an extension of nature itself.   All of the players, managers, coaches, umpires, groundskeepers, scorekeepers, announcers, and fans are all part of a wonderful drama that unfolds daily before our eyes.   Not unlike watching a flower bloom in time-elapsed photography.  

The way this magnificent game of baseball is constructed, it requires more than a mere pitcher to create a perfect game.   To get twenty-seven outs in a row, not only do the planets have to be aligned, and your lucky star compatible with the third-basemen's rising sign, but everything and everyone on the field that day must be perfect; the pitcher, the catcher, the defense, the offense, the umpires, the weather, the fans, the chemistry, the atmosphere, the ambience and the aura.

And therein lies the baseball-nature paradox: a perfect game can and does exist in a natural, imperfect world that is teeming with human beings, all of which are imperfect.  

Humans make mistakes, pure and simple, and that, too, is part of the game. 

We cannot change what has happened.  Right or wrong, it is done.   

As mere mortals, who are we to go back and change nature, re-write history?   We are humans, not gods.   We can no sooner change history than we can stop the sun from shining.

This is precisely why I commend Commissioner Bud Selig for doing the right thing, and allowing the ruling to stand.

This particular game, as all games are, is a unique piece of history.  Probably, a game like this will never happen again.   So, you want to just erase it?  Throw it away?  Are you kidding me?   This game will continue to stimulate discussion and arguments and probably a few fistfights for years.  Forget it?   Impossible.   

Oh, sure, it would be very convenient to change the ruling.  it would make everyone's life a lot easier.  Ump Jim Joyce wouldn’t have to wear the jacket that says “I robbed that kid of his perfect game.”   And Armando Galarraga would have his perfecto.   All neat, clean and tidy.

Maybe, while we’re at it, we could go back and change all the calls that we didn't like over the years.  Yeah, we could re-write history, change the stats, and neaten everything up once and for all.   Sound good?  (Don’t make me laugh).

Even though umpire Jim Joyce, upon realizing his mistake, tearfully apologized to Armando Galarraga and the Tigers, he will always be remembered as the guy who stole the perfect game.   Not to mention it would have been Armando Galarraga's ticket to the Hall of Fame.  

And by the way, in a situation where most pitchers would have gone ballistic, Armando Galarraga was the personification of grace.   He merely smiled, seemingly out of embarrassment for the ump.  

The best thing to come out of this entire episode is the way both Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga comported themselves.   With graciousness, dignity, and class all the way.  

The last I heard, the game itself was the most important thing.   Winning the game is supposed to be the number one priority of the team, and of every ball player. 

Everything else is secondary, including personal achievements.   Although a big part of the game is in statistics and records, winning the game is still the number one goal.  

The right call is the call that was made, not the call that one can make after a close up and an instant replay. 

Some argue natural human error is a part of sports and the integrity of sports therein.  Some argue that the right call needs to be made so we can know who's best.  

What do you think?