silveradept | Special Comment: Baseball

9.02:
(a) 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. No player, manager, coach or substitute shall object to any such judgment decisions.

One might not guess at my like of the game of baseball, considering I don't talk about it much, but that's compounded somewhat because I'm out-of-market for most of the teams I want to follow, and sports packages are notoriously expensive. So I suffer in silence. Sort of. But last night, something bad happened. Taking a perfect game all the way through, Andreas Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers (my home crew, alternatingly brilliant and basement-dwelling) looked to have the last out sewn up...

...and the umpire called the batter-runner safe at first. Perfect game gone. Tigers still won, 3-0, but the video replay looked pretty conclusive. There is no replay solution in baseball, though. And the first perfect game thrown in Tigers history, isn't.

Rule 9.02 strikes. No judgement call can be appealed by anyone on the field. Afterward, however, the first base umpire looked at the video, and he said that he made the wrong call. Yesterday, the batter-runner who was called safe said he was out. There was an appeal made to the one person who would have the power to overturn the bad call and award the perfect game, and his name is Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Presented with the evidence and the testimony of both the opposing player and the umpire who made the call, Bud Selig did nothing. Maybe he feels his hands are tied by 9.02 - but that only covers players, coaches, and managers. The umpire can't reverse his call later on when he realizes it's crap? It was the last out of the game, and the outcome (the "what if Cleveland put up a serious rally" scenario) didn't change. There's no reason for Bud Selig to not be able to overturn the call made by the umpire, declare the out and award the perfect game. If he's worried about it being a precedent, he can write whatever damn rule and arcane procedure of appeal he wants to make sure only he can make that decision in the future.

All Bud Selig did is say that he would look into adding replay in limited situations. And thus, because he allowed the rule to overrule the game, there are still no perfect games in Detroit Tigers history.

Having done things from the umpire's perspective, I appreciate having the rule there. I know that I've blown a few, and I've seen more than a few get blown while I was there, and had to hold my tongue because nobody appealed. Thankfully, I've never had to have one of my bad rulings wreck a perfect game like this. In that case, if I apologized and did so publicly, it was probably because I cared more about getting the call right than about the strict application of the rules. Jim Jones has said as much. (And, as Mr. Olbermann points out, there's even precedent for using replay to make sure a call was correct.) Why is Bud Selig not letting the spirit of fair play, sportsmanship, and the game shine through? It's not like he's making any sort of controversial decision, really.

Bud Selig, for as long as you allow this imperfect game to stay imperfect, you're the Worst Commissioner in the World.