On July 24, 1981, an umpire that had a direct implication on the outcome of the game played made an egregious call.
Baseball enthusiasts will note that this is the date of the infamous Pine Tar Incident, in which Royals third baseman George Brett had a go-ahead home run nullified by then-Rookie umpire Tim McClelland. McClelland ruled that Brett’s bat had an illegal amount of pine tar on the bat, making it illegal. He reversed the home run call and called Brett out, thus ending the game.
After protesting the outcome of the game and the call, then American League commissioner Lee McPhail ruled that McClelland had misinterpreted the rule in regards to the amount of pine tar on the bat and should have simply removed the bat from the game and not called Brett out. The ruling allowed the home run to stand and required that both the Royals and Yankees had to make up the final half of the inning that would have been played had the home run stood.
Ladies and gentlemen, that incident alone shows precedence for a commissioner overturning a call on the field for the sake of the game.
Now let’s take it back to the present, or at the very least, the very recent past, when on Wednesday June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was robbed of a perfect game when, on the twenty-seventh out, umpire Jim Joyce botched a call at first base, ruling the runner safe when replay shows that the throw and tag beat the runner to first base handedly. The error was so pronounced, that Joyce himself admitted to making it just seconds later and was moved to tears upon completion of the game. The twenty-first perfect game in Major League history, and third in 2010, was denied by an admittedly bad call on the field.
So, with no power in which to reverse the call on the field, Joyce openly petitioned Commissioner Bud Selig to make things right.
Selig, as has become his legacy, dropped the ball and as of yet, has not reversed the call. The commissioner has openly said the call was missed and that coupled with numerous other bad calls recently, Major League Baseball would look into expanding instant replay. He did not however, address any plans to change the call. The window of opportunity has seemingly passed.
Certainly, this is not an easy decision to make. Never before has a call on the field had direct impact on the record books, so it goes without saying that changing this call would make for interesting observations from both the baseball traditionalists and the current fandom that demands justice to be done. There is no doubt that such a change would require an asterisk, but even the Roger Maris home run record never truly received an asterisk despite its implication.
Galarraga, who has shown incredible poise during this controversy, has evenly openly said he would be willing to accept the perfect game through an overturned ruling. But would those feelings still hold true for Galarraga after he walks away from the game, or would he rather be known as the pitcher that threw the biggest no-no that wasn’t?
Regardless, Selig knows the history of the game, and he knows his place in it. He knows that precedence occurs for a commissioner to overturn a call on the field, and he knows when the right time to enact that ability is. Now it is just a matter of flipping the switch and doing what is right, before it goes down as another blunder by a man with a mixed legacy in the game.
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