Perfect game? It's not a perfect world

Baseball is not perfect.

There was, however, something perfect about what happened in Detroit.

It started with 26 consecutive outs Wednesday night by the Detroit Tigers and pitcher Armando Galarraga. An out away from the 21st perfect game in Major League history, Galarraga got Cleveland Indians' Jason Donald to hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield.

What happened next will be long remembered, perhaps more than the other two pitchers to throw a perfect game in 2010.

Donald was called safe by first base umpire Jim Joyce, who later admitted he got it wrong after seeing replays. What the veteran umpire got right was that he sought out Galarraga and apologized.

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce told reporters. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."

Galarraga also got it right by his reaction to the call -- he smiled and walked back to the mound before getting the next hitter out to end the game.

"The players are human, the umpires are human, the managers are human," said Detroit manager Jim Leyland, who argued with Joyce after the call and the game.

The official scorer, Chuck Klonke, made the right call by not calling the play an error to keep a no-hitter intact. First baseman Miguel Cabrera made a clean play and a good throw, he said, and Galarraga didn't miss the bag.

Joyce showed up for work again Thursday afternoon with Galarraga presenting the home plate umpire with the Tigers' lineup card.

The Tigers didn't ask Major League Baseball to overturn the call and Commissioner Bud Selig took the high road and, according to an Associated Press source, will not change the call.

"While the human element has always been an integral part of baseball, it is vital that mistakes on the field be addressed," Selig said in a statement Thursday.

It was simply perfection from imperfection.

"If the world were perfect it wouldn't be," Yogi Berra once said.

Berra knows about perfection having caught the only perfect game in World Series history. Before that day in 1956, thrown by Don Larsen, it had been 34 years since the last one.

A perfect game -- all 27 batters retired in a row -- is one of the rarest occurrences in baseball, perhaps of all the sports, even after a pair of perfect games coming within 20 days of each other -- by Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay.

It would be easy to understand the frustration of fans and the Tigers.

Galarraga caught a bad break but consider Pedro Martinez and Harvey Haddix, who pitched perfectly for nine-plus innings. Neither are considered perfect games -- Martinez gave up a hit to start the 10th and Haddix threw 12 perfect innings (36 outs) before losing the game.

Read about Haddix here.

Selig avoided opening up Pandora's box by not overturning Joyce's call.

There have been plenty of close calls -- Galarraga is the 10th pitcher not to get the final out for a perfect game -- not counting one involving The Babe himself. In 1917, Babe Ruth walked the leadoff hitter and was ejected for arguing the call before the runner was caught stealing and Ernie Shore retired the next 26 consecutively. The same thing happened to Cy Young.

Read about more close calls here.

In 1972, Milt Pappas walked a batter after retiring the first 26 hitters. Pappas was ahead in the count 1-2 but walked Larry Stahl before finishing off the no-hitter. Pappas felt he threw a strike to Stahl.

Pappas and Galarraga have the most in common among the close-but-no-cigar club.

If the call by Joyce is overturned by Selig, why not the ball called on Pappas' pitch? Why not Don Denkinger's missed call in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series?

Selig has already opened the door for instant replay in baseball, starting with home runs last year, and said in his statement Thursday that he will look into "expanded use of instant replay and all other related features."

The use of instant replay goes against the spirit of Rule 9.02 (a), which says:

"Any umpire's decision which involves judgment, such as, but not limited to, whether a batted ball is fair or foul, whether a pitch is a strike or a ball, or whether a runner is safe or out, is final."

Before he became commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote:

"The umpire is untouchable (there is a law protecting his person) and infallible. He is the much maligned, indispensable, faceless figure of Judgment, in touch with all the codes, the lore, with nature's vagaries, for he decides when she has won. He is the Constitution and Court before our eyes, and he may be the most durable figure in the game for he, alone, never sits, never rests. He has no side, save the obligation to dispense justice speedily."

Before that missed call in the ninth inning Wednesday night, most casual fans might not have known Jim Joyce from James Joyce (the umpire may actually be related to the author of "Ulysses.")

Joyce did his job. He didn't think about the moment, he saw a play and made a call.

Galarraga threw 67 of his 88 pitches for strikes, fanning three, while inducing 14 ground outs and six fly outs. He didn't lose control, even after the call went against him, for his first career shutout and complete game.

Selig showed fans that one out or one game -- be it perfect or Game 6 of the World Series -- is not bigger than the baseball itself.

Baseball (and life) may not be perfect, but it's how we deal with those imperfect moments that define us.

Galarraga and Joyce showed integrity and class. The national pasttime -- and perhaps the nation -- is better for it.