What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity. And in doing so, [Armando] Galarraga and [Jim] Joyce showed kids How to Do It.
A lot of adults don’t teach kids this now, because the adults themselves don’t know how to do it. There’s a mentoring gap, an instruction gap in our country. We don’t put forward a template because we don’t know the template. So everyone imitates TV, where victors dance in the end zone, where winners shoot their arms in the air and distort their face and yell “Whoooaahhh,” and where victims of an injustice scream, cry, say bitter things, and beat the ground with their fists. Everyone has come to believe this is authentic. It is authentically babyish. Everyone thinks it’s honest. It’s honestly undignified, self-indulgent, weak and embarrassing.
Galarraga and Joyce couldn’t have known it when they went to work Wednesday, but they were going to show children in an unforgettable way that a victim of injustice can react with compassion, and a person who makes a mistake can admit and declare it. Joyce especially was a relief, not spinning or digging in his heels. I wish he hadn’t sworn. Nobody’s perfect.
Thursday afternoon the Tigers met the Indians again in Comerica Park. Armando Galarraga got a standing ovation. In a small masterpiece of public relations, Detroit’s own General Motors gave him a brand new red Corvette. Galarraga brought out the lineup card and gave it to the umpire””Jim Joyce, who had been offered the day off but chose to work.
Yeah, Peggy is right, this kind of display of character and good sportsmanship is almost as rare as… well, pitching a perfect game.
I’m glad Galarraga got the beautiful corvette and the standing ovation, but the umpire also gets high marks for having the courage to show up the next day and for promptly admitting his mistake.
David Handy+
Agreed. As awful as the blown call was, and as painful as the injustice of not having what was in all honesty the 21st perfect game recognized, all involved behaved incredibly well. It was truly a class act.
My guess is that one day MLB will do the right thing and fix the records. But for now Galarraga has garnered more fame and good will than any of the preceding 20 pitchers who threw a perfect game. I will be willing to bet that 10 years from now only the most die hard of sports trivia buffs will be able to name more than a few of these pitchers. But anyone who is even a passing fan of the American pastime will know the story of Armando Galarraga.
What’s really amazing about this is that there has never been a single season in which more than one perfect game was pitched, and this year there have been three (counting Galarraga’s) in the course of about a month. Surely this is in the book of Revelation somewhere!
Noonan is SO right: those two men showed the kids how to do it. But even more, they showed the WORLD how to do it.
What is really tacky is all the Michigan legislators–state and federal–PLUS the Michigan Governor pushing for Bud Seelig to CHANGE the outcome. Those folks are showing their pettiness and childishness. And they want the world to know that the government can take care of anything, including a botched call.
But I think [Noonan] has it right: Galarraga and Joyce will be remembered for something FAR better than a perfect game. They will be remembered for character and honesty. Both of them. I hope they appreciate that. I do.
Galarraga and Harvey Haddix, who taught me to suck up the vagaries of life, and sports. It was Larsen’s perfect game in the ’56 series that first entranced me about baseball, but Haddix back in ’58 grafted me into that sport forever, even though I never could figure out A-league curve balls and consequently did not make it into Rookie League.