If you haven’t heard about this or seen it, last night the kids and I witnessed baseball history: We saw Armando Galarraga throw a perfect game (no walks and no hits over 9 innings) only to have one of the worst calls in baseball history end his perfect night. Jim Joyce called the 27th player safe when he was clearly out.
Watch and hear about it here:
Perhaps the more remarkable part of this story is the reaction of both the umpire and the pitcher. The umpire watched the replay, realized he made a mistake, and immediately went to apologize to the pitcher. The pitcher forgave him saying: “no one is perfect.”
Listen to more on their conversation here.
When we make a mistake, we need to take responsibility, and when we do, people are more often willing to forgive us than we might imagine. For a pitcher who was in the minor leagues just a couple of weeks ago, he has every right to be upset and hold a grudge against the umpire. Instead, he chose to forgive.
It may not be recorded like this in the record book, but last night because of the way he pitched and the way he responded, I saw the ending to a perfect game.