"I feel horrible"- Jim Joyce

This is about two things: 1. MLB needs replay, more than they know and 2. Jim Joyce and the Perfect game that wasn't.

You don't read this blog for news, or at least I hope you don't, there are better sources out there, but you read this blog for my opinion, which is only here.

I want to look at Replay in baseball, last night's Indians @ Tigers game where a perfect game was oh so close to happening. I am not saying that every play should be reviewed, but baseball needs it. I hear Bud Selig saying "Human Error" is a great thing, and "traditionalist...." it is all nonsense. It is now time for baseball to adopt a replay and challenge system. What I am talking about is opening every play open to replay except balls and strikes. The managers would be allowed ONE challenge per pitcher, and they don't get another challenge until they change their pitcher. So for example if in the 5th inning your starter is rolling and you use your challenge, successful or not, you are out of challenges. If there is a play that is close and your starter is still in, you cannot change pitchers to challenge the previous play.

This would allow baseball to have replay and protect their 'human error' crap.

Now onto the second half of the blog- Jim Joyce and the Perfect Game that wasn't: We have all seen the replays, if you haven't, I'll wait....
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Good you're back. Oh so close, a bang bang play and safe at first. Last night both Joyce and Armando Galarraga were very classy about the situation and Galarraga was the picture of good sportsmanship. Jim Joyce who is a great umpire, been around for 18+ years seems torn up about the call and seems disappointed in himself. There are calls for Selig to step in and change the call and the boxscore, but does that really change anything? Galarraga seems like he can live without the perfect game, and frankly that is what is important. We as a society always talks about good sportsmanship, we criticize LeBron James when he doesn't shake hands after a playoff series, praise hockey players at the end of playoff series, and demanded in the mid 2000s that the Yankees and Red Sox shake hands after a fight, but when we see REAL sportsmanship, we want to change it all and kill the umpire. Face it we are acting like that parent at a Little League game who doesn't want to see his son lose ever.

I am an umpire, and the missed calls are tougher than the made calls to swallow, I made a mistake last week, I corrected it, but I made a mistake, now it is my goal not to make that mistake again. That is a tough thing to do, but now I have moved on, but it was awkward for a couple of moments.

I guess now, I am going to go to the other side, why couldn't Jim Joyce correct his mistake? Because it was so close that he thought he was safe.

Remember always be a fan.