I am a little freaked out by all these perfect games in baseball this season. What does perfection mean if it becomes commonplace? There were like 18 in all of baseball history before the season started and there have been two so far this year. Or three, maybe, except one got screwed up on the last out of the last inning by a bad call by the umpire. The ump himself was all “oh I’m sorry, boo hoo hoo” after the game. (Ok, not a direct quote, but you get the idea.)
Coming from a guy who has no memory of not wearing glasses and was maybe supposed to be blind but for some surgeries and eye patches (ouch! I don’t want to wear that! the adhesive makes the skin around my eye raw!) this may sound like sour grapes. I’ll probably never pitch in the Major Leagues. There, I said it. I’ll probably never umpire in the major leagues either. But I will over analyze everything I do, and I don’t need any additional help from technology.
Having the feeling you got screwed out of a perfect game by a bad call on the last out of the last inning makes for a much better legend than having photographic evidence of being screwed out of a perfect game by a bad call on the last out of the last inning. In one case there will always be room for discussion, a what if. In the other there is only the injustice and a feeling of pity for the victim. There will undoubtedly be calls for the implementation of instant replay in baseball.
But if baseball is to continue as an analogy of life, then you have to have the potential of being hosed. That is not to say that I do not feel for Armando Galarraga or have great admiration for his accomplishment. What I am saying is that there are some pretty major injustices in this world, and they cannot be corrected by instant replay or the intervention of a commissioner. The only choice then is to either continue with our dignity intact despite the wrongs done us or to leave the field all together. Record books aside, Armando Galarraga will always know what he was able to do.