Bauman: Galarraga shows perfect class

Pitcher handles missed call with grace and compassion

The only saving grace to Armando Galarraga being robbed of a perfect game by a blown call was that after the mistake had been made the principal parties involved acted with a certain amount of grace.

The Detroit Tigers right-hander threw a perfect game on Wednesday night against the Cleveland Indians, but he won't get official credit for it, because first-base umpire Jim Joyce blew a call on what should have been the final out of the game.

With two outs and Galarraga on the verge of pitching immortality, Indians shortstop Jason Donald hit a grounder wide of first. Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded the ball, and tossed to Galarraga covering first. Galarraga beat Donald to the bag. Cabrera's throw beat Donald to the bag. Donald was out. The perfect game had been completed.

But no, Joyce umpiring at first base called Donald safe. The perfect game had turned into the perfect storm. Instead of Galarraga's perfect game being remembered, an umpire's human error would be endlessly recalled.

To Joyce's credit, he directly owned up to the mistake.

"It was the biggest call of my career and I kicked the [stuff] out of it," he said. "I just cost that kid a perfect game after he pitched his [behind] off all night."

"I had a great angle and I missed the call. I really thought [Donald] beat the ball. At that time, I thought he beat the ball. After I heard from the Tigers, who had obviously seen a replay, I asked the guy in the room to cue up the play as soon as we got in here, and I missed it from here to that wall."

Joyce asked to meet with Galarraga after the game to offer him a personal apology. Tigers president/general manager Dave Dombrowski brought Galarraga from the Tigers' clubhouse to the umpire's room to meet with Joyce. Throughout this ordeal, Galarraga has demonstrated a level of dignity that was as admirable as his pitching had been. Another man might have ranted and raved for several weeks. Galarraga had to be extraordinarily disappointed, but he made no public show of outrage. And then he graciously accepted Joyce's apology.

"He understands," Galarraga said. "I give him a lot of credit for coming in and saying, 'Hey, I need to talk to you to say I'm sorry.' That doesn't happen. You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry.' He apologized to me and he felt really bad. He didn't even shower. He was in the same clothes. He gave me a couple hugs.

"I know nobody's perfect. What are you going to do? I was mad in the moment because I was nervous. I didn't know what to do. I was like celebrating. Then I looked at him.

"He apologized. He feels really bad. Nobody is perfect," Galarraga said. "What am I gonna do? His body language said more than a lot of words. His eyes were watery, he didn't have to say much. His body language said a lot."

Joyce, a 22-season Major League veteran, and, apart from this incident, a respected umpire, understood that he was going to be in for some serous criticism.

"I don't blame the Tigers for anything that was said after the game," Joyce said. "If I had been Galarraga, I would have been the first one in my face and he never said a word to me. I don't blame one person for their reaction."

One person who was in Joyce's face was Tigers manager Jim Leyland, who went out immediately after the call was made for an explanation/argument and resumed the argument after the final out. But later, Leyland cooled down and offered a helpful, healing perspective.

"That's the nature of the business, that's just the way it is," Leyland said. "The players are human. The umpires are human. The managers are human. The writers are human. We all make mistakes. It's a crying shame. Jimmy's a real good umpire, has been for a long time. He probably got it wrong."

The missed call was a real low point for baseball, an epic performance; a perfect game pitched by Galarraga erased by human error, an umpire's error. Both Galarraga and baseball were deprived of history and the injustice rankled.

And yet, the aftermath of human error included all the parties involved displaying some admirable human qualities. Joyce seemed to be truly penitent. Galarraga acted with consistent grace and dignity. Leyland had enough generosity of spirit to offer kind, consoling words for the umpire.

The human mistake would not be erased; the injustice would not be reversed. But the aftermath offered some displays of human dignity that reminded us not of a major mistake but of baseball's best traits.

Mike Bauman is a national columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Donald accepts reality: He was out Indians rookie sees on replay that ninth-inning call was wrong

DETROIT -- The first starting pitcher cut from Tigers camp this spring was a blown call away from the first perfect game in franchise history.

For Armando Galarraga, Wednesday's one-hit shutout that should've been far more was just the start of his mixed emotions. When asked after the gem for his reaction, he basically had to shrug.

He's well-known in the Tigers clubhouse for his card tricks. He had to feel like he got tricked out of history in a 3-0 win over the Indians.

"I don't know," Galarraga said. "I'm happy and sad. I don't know."

He didn't know how to react to the call, and neither did many people. Many watching from afar, though, didn't know how to react to Galarraga pitching this way in the first place.

The closest the Tigers have gotten to a perfect game was Kevin Costner. He played the fictional pitcher Billy Chapel in the 1999 movie "For Love of the Game," which revolves around Chapel tossing a perfect game in his final start. In reality, Wednesday could be the start that finally gets Galarraga's career rolling.

He led the Tigers in victories as a rookie in 2008 after coming over in a Minor League trade, but was out of the rotation by the stretch run of the American League Central race last fall. Galarraga had manager Jim Leyland raving about him over the winter, his hope renewed by a healthy arm and a brief winter ball stint, but his struggles to attack hitters made him the first starting candidate sent to the Minors in Spring Training.

The Tigers skipped him in the rotation last weekend for Max Scherzer, and team officials had to decide whether to keep him or Dontrelle Willis among the starting five. Galarraga's previous outing was a relief appearance last Saturday to help him get the feel for his slider.

Wednesday's outing raised a lot of questions around the game, but it answered a big one about Galarraga.

"I want to thank this whole organization for believing in me," he said.

By no means did the Tigers believe he could do something like this. If anyone had a chance to pitch a perfect game in Detroit, the first guess would be Justin Verlander, who threw a no-hitter in 2007. Scherzer might've entered the conversation after he struck out 14 batters over 5 2/3 innings Sunday.

By contrast, the Tigers were simply looking for quality outings from Galarraga. To get there, they were looking for strikes.

Galarraga's previous start was a May 22 loss at Dodger Stadium in which he paid for some hanging sliders that Leyland called "just spinning." He threw an extended side session in the bullpen a week ago at Seattle with a focus on improving his slider, his workhorse pitch, and his sinker.

Pitching coach Rick Knapp didn't know Galarraga had this good of stuff, but he knew he had something good going when he watched Galarraga warm up in the bullpen before Wednesday's game.

"He's the one who put the work in," Knapp said. "He's the one that did what was necessary. He took some small things that I told him and he worked them to the Nth degree."

Galarraga missed with his first two pitches of the night to rookie leadoff man Trevor Crowe. He didn't have another two-ball count until he had two outs in the fourth. He didn't face a three-ball count until Travis Hafner ran the count full leading off the fifth.

"He was just getting in a rhythm," rookie catcher Alex Avila said. "He was in a rhythm all game. You get that first-pitch strike and you can throw whatever you want up there. He did a great job today in that aspect."

Time and again, Galarraga had Indians hitters swinging at the pitches he wanted them to chase, and hitting them for outs. More often than not, they did it early in counts.

"My sinker and my fastball," Galarraga said. "I was just throwing fastball, fastball, fastball on the corners, corners, corners and it was moving really well."

Normally, that fastball hits 92-93 mph on the radar gun. Once Knapp saw 94 and 95 popping up on the Comerica Park scoreboard, he sensed something was special.

It caught the Indians completely by surprise.

"He established his fastball the first time through our order," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "After that, he started throwing that good slider that he has. I think our hitters were looking for that slider early in the game and never saw it until late. He did a good job keeping the ball down, every one of them, and made our guys pound the ball into the ground the whole night. He deserves a lot of credit."

The pitch counts were astounding -- nine in the opening inning, 10 each in the second, third and fifth, eight in the sixth and six in the seventh. Galarraga's high counts until the ninth were an 11-pitch fourth and eighth.

Face just 24 batters through eight innings, and the pitch count is going to be low. Still, Galarraga entered the ninth with just 75 pitches thrown.

By then, he was well aware of what was going on.

"Coming into the eighth, I got out of the inning really quick," Galararaga said. "I was like, 'You've got this.'"

He had plenty of time to himself to think about it in the dugout. He was at the far end; everybody else was closer to the stairs.

"Nobody talked to me," Galarraga said. "But you got the feeling everybody in the dugout was like, 'Leave him alone and let him do his thing he was doing every inning.'"

Galarraga went out for the ninth looking to do the same thing, get ahead in the count on Mark Grudzielanek. But the 38-year-old Grudzielanek surprised him by swinging at the first pitch and driving it to left-center field. What could've been a confidence-shatterer turned into a boost with Austin Jackson's over-the-shoulder catch.

"When Jackson made that play," Galarraga said, "I was like, 'Come on, Armando, finish what you start.' For myself, I know I finished."

Galarraga needed two outs for the first perfect game by a Tigers hurler, and the first for a Venezuelan-born player. Mike Redmond's grounder to short brought it down to one out.

Galarraga made a mad dash to first base to cover the bag when Miguel Cabrera ventured out to field Jason Donald's ground ball. When first-base umpire Jim Joyce ruled he didn't get to the bag in time, the emotion on Galarraga poured out.

"He was telling me that after the call he was so nervous over the last couple innings of the game that he didn't know how to react," Avila said.

Instead, he just smiled.

"I think it's a nervous thing," Galarraga said. "I'm so nervous, I smile. You see that play, I was nervous. I didn't know whether to smile or punch [Joyce]. It would be worse if I punched him, so I'm happy I smiled.

"I know nobody's perfect. What are you going to do? I was mad in the moment because I was nervous. I didn't know what to do. I was like celebrating. Then I looked at him."

Galarraga was emotionally numb, but he wasn't finished. He still had an out left to go, and he still had a shutout. Leyland had closer Jose Valverde warmed up, but he wouldn't have dared, not at that point.

Galarraga could've easily come apart after that. Instead, he threw five more pitches, got a groundout from Crowe, and got his win.

"I don't know what happened," Galarraga said. "I just threw one strike and a slider and something like that. I didn't even think. I just threw the ball and tried to get out of the game."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Almost perfect night

Complete coverage
• Missed call ends bid
• Galarraga rewards faith 
• Pitcher perfect to Tigers 
• A-Jax grab one for ages
• Donald shows hustle 
• Call part of ump's legacy
• Instant call for replay
• Umps feel Joyce's pain
• Donald admits he was out
• Joyce touched by support
• Memorable loss for Tribe
• Indians tip caps
• Galarraga meets Joyce
• Gammons: Civility wins
• Galarraga shows class
• MLB to discuss saga
• Selig, league respond
• Media weighs in
• MLB statement

Sources: Commissioner Selig Reviews Galarraga Game

Major League Baseball sources with direct knowledge of the meeting confirm that key members of baseball's hierarchy were to convene this morning in New York to review the circumstances of Umpire Jim Joyce's erroneous "safe" call at first base in Detroit, which last night denied the Tigers' Armando Galarraga what would have been the 21st Perfect Game in baseball history and the third in just 25 days.

There was considerable doubt that Commissioner Bud Selig felt he could or should intervene in overturning the results of an umpire's on-the-field ruling. The Detroit News reported that the Tigers might be contacting MLB in hopes of remedying what umpire Joyce later admitted, clearly and emotionally, was a wildly incorrect call. The News quoted Tigers' General Manager Dave Dombrowski as saying "I wouldn't get into telling you what I would do. That's a private matter. He shouldn't have missed it. It's a shame for the kid..."

Baseball sources said that as of late morning, the Tigers' opponents, the Cleveland Indians, had not contacted the Commissioner's office. Their support of any change to last night's call might be a key factor.

"This isn't a call," Joyce said afterwards, "this is a history call. And I kicked the **** out of it, and nobody feels worse than I do...I took a perfect game away from that kid."

Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated and MLB Network tweeted that Commissioner Selig was "involved" and his office would have a statement at some point today.

Some in the Commissoner's office were to urge Selig to declare that with Joyce's admission, the 27th out of the game was recorded when Cleveland's Jason Donald grounded out, first baseman Miguel Cabrera to pitcher Galarraga, covering first. The base hit credited to Donald, and the following at bat, by Cleveland's Trevor Crowe, would be wiped off the books and thus Galarraga would be credited with a perfect game.

There is precedent for the Commissioner's Office to decide what is, and isn't, a perfect game. On September 4, 1991, a so-called "Statistical Accuracy Committee" ruled that the game would only official recognize as perfect games, ones in which pitchers retired 27 (or more) consecutive batters and completed the game without a batter reaching first base. The ruling wiped off the books the 1959 game in which Harvey Haddix of Pittsburgh pitched 12 perfect innings, only to lose the game to Milwaukee on a base hit. It also erased the 1917 game in which then-pitcher Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox had walked the lead off batter, then been ejected by the umpire for arguing the call. Reliever Ernie Shore entered the game with none out and that runner on first, who was promptly caught stealing. Shore then retired the 26 batters he faced, and had, at the time of the Commissioner's Office ruling, been credited with a perfect game for more than 74 years. 48 more no-hit games were also erased by the re-definition of the rules.

There are also countless instances of umpires' on-field decisions being reviewed and even overruled by the now dormant offices of the Presidents of the American and National League. One such review confirmed a controversial "out" ruling that ultimately decided the 1908 NL pennant. More recently, in 1983, after Kansas City's George Brett had hit a two-out, 9th inning home run to bring his team from behind to ahead in a game in New York, umpire Tim McClelland determined that Brett had broken the rules by having the gripping substance "pine tar" further up his bat than rules permitted. McClelland nullified Brett's home run and called him out for the final out of the game. Within days, American League President Lee MacPhail had overruled McClelland, declared the home run valid, and ordered the game replayed, more than a month later, from the point directly after Brett's home run.

The danger of a government with unlimited power

By George F. Will

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Today, as it has been for a century, American politics is an argument between two Princetonians -- James Madison, Class of 1771, and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879. Madison was the most profound thinker among the Founders. Wilson, avatar of "progressivism," was the first president critical of the nation's founding. Barack Obama's Wilsonian agenda reflects its namesake's rejection of limited government.

Lack of "a limiting principle" is the essence of progressivism, according to William Voegeli, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, in his new book "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State." The Founders, he writes, believed that free government's purpose, and the threats to it, are found in nature. The threats are desires for untrammeled power, desires which, Madison said, are "sown in the nature of man." Government's limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness.

Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government's ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights -- entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being.

The name "progressivism" implies criticism of the Founding, which we leave behind as we make progress. And the name is tautological: History is progressive because progress is defined as whatever History produces. History guarantees what the Supreme Court has called "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

The cheerful assumption is that "evolving" must mean "improving." Progressivism's promise is a program for every problem, and progressivism's premise is that every unfulfilled desire is a problem.

Franklin Roosevelt, an alumnus of Wilson's administration, resolved to "resume" Wilson's "march along the path of real progress" by giving government "the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity." He repudiated the Founders' idea that government is instituted to protect pre-existing and timeless natural rights, promising "the re-definition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order."

He promised "a right to make a comfortable living." Presumably, the judiciary would define and enforce the delivery of comfort. Specifically, there could be no right to "do anything which deprives others" of whatever "elemental rights" the government decides to dispense.

Today, government finds the limitless power of dispensing not in Madison's Constitution of limited government but in Wilson's theory that the Constitution actually frees government from limitations. The liberating -- for government -- idea is that the Constitution is a "living," evolving document. Wilson's Constitution is an emancipation proclamation for government, empowering it to regulate all human activities in order to treat all human desires as needs and hence as rights. Unlimited power is entailed by what Voegeli calls government's "right to discover new rights."

"Liberalism's protean understanding of rights," he says, "complicates and ultimately dooms the idea of a principled refusal to elevate any benefit that we would like people to enjoy to the status of an inviolable right." Needs breed rights to have the needs addressed, to the point that Lyndon Johnson, an FDR protege, promised that government would provide Americans with "purpose" and "meaning."

Although progressivism's ever-lengthening list of rights is as limitless as human needs/desires, one right that never makes the list is the right to keep some inviolable portion of one's private wealth or income, "regardless," Voegeli says, "of the lofty purposes social reformers wish to make of it."

Lacking a limiting principle, progressivism cannot say how big the welfare state should be but must always say that it should be bigger than it currently is. Furthermore, by making a welfare state a fountain of rights requisite for democracy, progressives in effect declare that democratic deliberation about the legitimacy of the welfare state is illegitimate.

"By blackening the skies with crisscrossing dollars," Voegeli says, the welfare state encourages people "to believe an impossibility: that every household can be a net importer of the wealth redistributed by the government." But the welfare state's problem, today becoming vivid, is socialism's problem, as Margaret Thatcher defined it: Socialist governments "always run out of other people's money."

Wilsonian government, meaning (in Wilson's words) government with "unstinted power," is hostile to Madison's Constitution, which, Madison said, obliges government "to control itself." Thus our choice is between government restraint rooted in respect for nature, or government free to follow History wherever government says History marches.

georgewill@washpost.com

Physician Warns That Arizona Immigration Law Could Turn Doctors Into Criminals

By Andrea Nill at 2:00 pm

Over the past few weeks, medical organizations and health care providers have come out againstArizona’s new immigration law, citing the likelihood that it will discourage a large segment of the population from seeking health care. Yesterday, however, Lucas Restrepo, M.D., published a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine that provided a whole new angle on the effect SB-1070 will have on the medical profession. Restrepo points out that, under the law, health care providers who treat undocumented immigrants could be considered criminals:

The new Arizona state immigration bill (SB-1070) signed into law on April 23 will seriously obstruct, if not undermine, the practice of medicine in the state of Arizona. It specifies that those who “conceal, harbor or shield or attempt to conceal, harbor or shield” a foreign person who came to the United States illicitly “are guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor” punishable by a fine of at least $1,000 (Sec. 5, Section 13-2929). It can be argued that health care providers who neglect to report illegal immigrants under their care will violate the law and be considered criminals. [...]
Asking patients to produce immigration documents violates the trust that physicians, nurses, and other health care workers endeavor to earn from them. This bill threatens one of the oldest traditions of medicine: physicians shall protect patients regardless of nationality or race. This legislation, if unchallenged, will force health care providers to choose between the dignity of their profession and the indignity of violating the law.

In his column, Restrepo notes the bill provides physicians (and police for that matter) with no criteria when it comes to what constitutes “reasonable grounds” to suspect that someone is undocumented. As a result, he worries that “health care providers in Arizona will need to ask for a passport before seeing certain patients (and providers themselves will need to carry their own passports at all times, depending on their physical appearance or accent).”

Studies have shown that, on average, immigrants are healthier than US citizens, use less medical care, use less expensive care, and do not impose a disproportionate financial burden on the U.S. health care system. However, accidents can happen to anyone and everyone gets sick at some point. Discouraging or denying treatment of undocumented immigrants in such incidents doesn’t just hurt them, it puts everyone at risk. According to experts, health care access to any population could lead to a health crisis that affects everyone.

Wonk Room previously reported that Dr. Winston Wong — Medical Director of community benefit at Kaiser Permanente — has gone as far as to argue that doctors have a professional obligation to oppose any measure that endangers the care of their patients and the public’s general health, including SB-1070. Last month, medical organizations representing more than 156,000 health care providers released astatement blasting Arizona’s new immigration law, calling it “an affront to human rights and a devastating step backwards for the health and well being of the entire nation.”