Bud Selig Resists Temptation to Open Pandora's Box

In the aftermath of Armando Galarraga's almost perfect game, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced this week that, despite a popular outcry to do so, he would not overturn an umpire's call and award the Detroit Tiger right-hander with a perfect game.

Perfect games are exceedingly rare. In the history of Major League Baseball, which is over 100 years old, with thousands of games played each season, there have been only 20 of them (though, interestingly, there have already been two this season). So the odds of any given pitcher pitching a perfect game on a given night are incredibly small. Of course, the odds of a pitcher throwing a perfect game for 26 outs and then getting it taken away from him on the 27^th out due to an umpire's blatantly missed call are smaller still.

After first base umpire Jim Joyce missed the call, Galarraga retired the 28^th batter. The game was over and the Tigers won, so the blown call by Joyce didn't result in a change in the outcome of the game. But it did change Galarraga's place in history; at least officially.

Given that the the 28^th out was recorded and given that the final result of the game wasn't changed, many fans and media members clamored for baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to step in and credit Galarraga with a perfect game.

Wisely, Selig refused to use his power as baseball Commissioner to try to overturn what happened on the field. While it was heartbreaking for Galarraga, his teammates, and baseball fans everywhere, the fact is, perfect games require a whole lot of greatness on the part of the pitcher, but they also require good team fielding, and a bit of luck. Galarraga had almost everything going for him: he was fantastic, and his team made some great plays (most notably the catch made by Austin Jackson in the ninth inning). But, Galarraga was very unlucky. He was unlucky in that a good veteran umpire in Jim Joyce blew a relatively easy call.

While precise records are not kept on this, it is likely that somewhere along the way there have been a game, or games, where a pitcher would have had a perfect game if not for a missed call by an umpire. Today, missed calls are seen more clearly and shared more quickly than ever before. While I think instant replay has a place in modern baseball, changing the rules retroactively does not.

What if, for example, a pitcher throws a perfect game, but an umpire's call in the middle of the game is seen on replay as incorrect in favor of the pitcher? What would happen then? Would the commissioner interject himself after the fact and take away the perfect game? Or does this just apply when a pitcher is victimized to a bad call? Would a perfect game stand if the pitcher lucked out on the call, but be taken away if he were victimized by it? If so, does this not cheapen the whole concept of a perfect game?

Bud Selig has done plenty to 'sell out' some of the most basic tenets of baseball in exchange for increased revenues and short term popularity. In some cased, he had no choice, and in some it was the politically expedient thing to do. In this case, he upheld the tradition and fabric of the game and did not open a Pandora's Box that must have looked very tempting.

Source: Ian O'Connor, "Imperfect Selig ditches perfect game", espn.com