MLB Commissioner Selig Had No Choice-Perfect Game Denied
Umpire Jim Joyce had a choice but not Bud Selig.
Believe me, as someone born and raised in Detroit and a lifelong Tigers fan I would have loved if Selig, the king of all things baseball, would have reversed Joyce's blown call at first base on what should have been the final out and awarded pitcher Armando Galarraga the perfect game he so richly deserved.
But despite a muddled Major League Baseball statement suggesting Selig was mulling over the matter the fact is the Commissioner is not going to do it. And he shouldn't.
As someone who played the game at a rather high level - as a Division I college shortstop - the beauty of the game was in its synchronization; how all the parts fit even when they didn't.
Broken bats turned into singles.
Ground balls bounced off rocks and shoulders for errors or base hits.
Ninety feet between bases, 60 feet 6 inches from the mound to home plate, 27 outs in each and every game.
Which leads me to this question: Say Selig did rule Jason Donald was out at first? What happens to Trevor Crowe, who officially ended the game? What? He never batted? Removed from the records book?
You see where this is headed? You make that call and a dangerous precedent is set. The game's DNA is irrevocably altered. "It causes so many complications," a high-ranking baseball official told me today. "You just don't go around changing calls like this."
That, as it turns out, was MLB's thinking very early on Thursday in the wake of Galarraga's bid for immortality. According to a source close to the pitcher, player and agent had been informed the call would not be reversed. That it was a "done deal" and "nothing else would happen."
But that was before a sports story turned into a rare human interest saga complete with Joyce's heart-wrenching apology and Galarraga's wry reaction that set a standard for grace and sportsmanship. Now, I'm told, Selig faced a more complex decision based on mounting pressure to right a wrong. So in an effort to buy some time he issued a statement that seemed to infer he was "reviewing" the play, along with all things umpiring including the expanded use of instant replay.
Fine. Review until your heart's content. But this moment in baseball history simply has to stand. The imperfect nature of a perfect game demands no other call.
Armen Keteyian is CBS News' chief investigative correspondent. He previously roamed NFL sidelines, NCAA games, the Tour de France and other venues as an Emmy-award winning special features reporter for CBS Sports. He also co-produced and co-wrote "A City on Fire: The Story of the '68 Detroit Tigers," a 2002 documentary aired as part of HBO Sports' "Sports of the 20th Century" series.