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I'm still trying not explode with anger and write this thing, but it's not going well.

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I haven't been this pissed about sports since the Michigan-Miami game.

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Actually, I may be more pissed about this. There have only been 20 perfect games in MLB history. It is probably the greatest feat in baseball, if not in all of sports, that can be accomplished by an individual.

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Alright, I'm going to try to keep the vitriol out of this.

First of all, I am going to give some credit to Jim Joyce (grudgingly, very grudgingly). He acted with a level of class that is incredibly uncommon for an umpire. After the game, he watched the replay, immediately admitted he was wrong, and personally apologized to both Galarraga and Leyland. He didn't equivocate nor attack any of the Tigers for their reaction. He even said that if he were Galarraga, he would have gotten in his face about it. Jim Joyce acted with integrity tonight and deserves to be commended for it. I am still extremely angry about the call and I think that Joyce should be subject to some major disciplinary action (because after all, you cannot screw up any worse than he did tonight), but I do respect him for doing what few, if any, other umpires would by manning up and admitting he was wrong.

This leads in to a greater point, namely the nature of umpiring. Umpires have two responsibilities. The first is to call a game correctly and impartially. The second is to maintain control of the game in order to ensure that the game runs smoothly and to ensure that it is as easy as possible to call a fair and impartial game. Now, umpires are human and make mistakes. However, in order to maintain control of the game, they have to stand by their mistakes. Whenever an umpire admits to being wrong, even after a game is finished, players around the league will be more likely to argue with the umpire on close calls, hoping to either get a reversal of the call (which almost never happens) or to get a favorable ruling for their team on the next close call (which arguably does happen). At any rate, these arguments disrupt the game and make it difficult for the umpire to call a game impartially. As such, umpires are forced to not only stand by their calls, but to eject players (or managers) who argue calls excessively, in order to deter others from doing so on close calls.

This, in turn, leads to how the MLB league office should respond to Jim Joyce's blown call. On one hand, the MLB never overturns judgment calls after the fact, because doing so serves to emasculate the umpire who made the call, as the league is publicly saying that the umpire's judgment is faulty. Furthermore, overturning a call is arguably a dangerous precedent, as it could theoretically lead to a series of overturned calls which would ultimately serve to undermine umpires in general. On the other hand, the umpire in question has admitted that he was wrong and overturning the call would have absolutely no conceivable change to the outcome of the game, as Galarraga got the next man to ground out anyway. Furthermore, as the entire baseball world is clearly aware that Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game, such a move would turn overwhelmingly negative publicity into somewhat positive publicity (or at least, less negative publicity). It would also serve to restore some faith in the league, especially on the heels of the Joe West debacle. As such, I am holding out some hope that the league will overturn the call and give Galarraga his perfect game.