Back on June 2, 2010, Tigers starting pitcher Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game. He retired the first 27 batters he faced. Unfortunately, the 27th out was actually an incorrect safe call by first-base umpire Jim Joyce.
Joyce owned up to the missed call immediately upon seeing a replay. He famously said he "kicked the sh*t out of that call" -- umpire parlance for missing it. Joyce said he was sick over the situation, saying he took a perfect game away from "that kid over there."
Video of the blown call and Galarraga's missed chance at history can be found below (call comes around the 4:50 mark):
The next day, Galarraga handed the Tigers lineup card to Joyce at home plate. Joyce patted him on the back and could seen visibly in tears. The two ended up building a bit of a friendship and even teamed up to write a book together, fittingly titled "Nobody's Perfect."
Ten years later, Galarraga wants the call overturned by Major League Baseball. Via The Athletic:
"I was like, what can I do to have a better finish to the story?" Galarraga says. "How can Major League Baseball give me the perfect game? Because it was perfect, right?"
Joyce is quoted in the same article, saying he agrees with Galarraga.
Normally, I'd be totally against any sort of re-litigating past missed calls from the pre-replay era. The history has already been written. It's in the books. Galarraga threw a one-hit shutout and only needed to face 28 batters (with 88 pitches!) to do it. That's it. It's been logged.
I'm willing to make an exception in this case. This wasn't a call in the fifth inning where we can't know what would've happened next. This was the 27th out. It was over. The call was unbelievably, obviously blown. The umpire admitted it right away.
In this case, I see absolutely zero harm to changing the call. The only fallout would be having to add Galarraga to the list of pitchers to have thrown a perfect game. There are officially 23. Major League Baseball: Make the list 24. Armando threw a perfect game. We all saw it. Make it official.
