The Theft of Histroy

By Mike Wilson

I'm Mike Wilson, The Co-founder of the In The Crease Network and one of the hosts of In The Crease Radio on blogtalkradio.com. Sometimes I fall asleep watching Sportscentre and dream opinions. When I wake up, this is what I find.

It's the top story on every sports radio and television show as well as every sports website on the web. Seeing this, I thought I'd give this story the honor of being the topic of my first blog post.

Of course, I'm talking about Armando Galarraga's perfect game stolen from him right before his very eyes.

After retiring 26 batters in a row, Indians shortstop, Jason Donald hit a ground ball to Tigers first baseman Miquel Cabrera. Galarraga ran to the base, caught the throw from Cabrera and stepped on the plate appearing to get him out and keeping his perfect game alive. But of course, if that was the case, this post would be waaay less interesting.

No, the umpire, Jim Joyce, called Donald safe and wiped Galarraga from the history books as being the man who pitched only the 21st perfect game in MLB history.

The replay clearly showed that Galarraga beat him to the plate, but as you know, Major League Baseball doesn't use instant replay for anything beyond seeing if a long ball goes all the way or not. And that rule was only introduced as recent as last year.

But nobody was as torn up about the situation as Joyce saying “This isn't 'a' call. This isn't -- This is -- This is a history call, and I kicked the sh** out of it. And there's nobody that feels worse than I do. I take pride in this job, and I kicked the sh** out of it, and I took a perfect game away from that kid who worked his ass off all night."

Bud Selig came out today saying that the league will not reverse the call but the they will be looking more into instant replay.

If it's any consolation, Galarrga was given a corvette for his almost perfect game.

I think that the MLB is waaay behind the other major North American leagues on the front of instant replay.

The Colorado Rockies got a spot in the playoffs because the runner, Matt Haladay, missed home plate by a few feet and was deemed safe anyways a few years back.

Stuff like this is going to keep happening if the MLB doesn't get on the instant replay train.

Insert end of blog tag line here,

Mike Wilson