Armando Galarraga: The Perfect Man

I’m not writing a romcom (for those of you who don’t normally speak in abbrevs this means romantic comedy). Nor am I browsing match.com, I’m doing what I normally do…watching sports. And in a moment of human imperfection came real humility, and real perfection. Its June 2nd, 2010, and unless you live under a rock you know that Jim Joyce blew a call on the final out of the Indians-Tigers game. The Detroit Tigers still went on to win the game 3-0. But this wasn’t just any out…it was the 27th out of a perfect game. Armando Galarraga had seen 26 batters come to the plate, and 26 walk away. Galarraga touched first base, ball in hand long before the runner ran over the plate, but Joyce called him safe, and the perfect game was gone. Dissipated into thin air as well as Galarraga’s place in history. But Galarraga and Joyce created history anyway.

Today in sports nothing matters but the numbers, the wins, the stats. Athletes cheat, lie, and dope to get the numbers, wins, and stats. But my perfect man finally successfully defined what athletes should strive to be, a sportsman. And standing behind first base on the play and behind Galarraga in the movement towards true humanity in sports was Jim Joyce. Its hard for anyone to admit when they make a mistake, but Joyce stood up for himself. Stood up for Galarraga. Stood up for the game of baseball when he admitted his flaw, his mistake.

Human error is the reason we love sports, and the reason we hate them. And on June 2nd we learned the proper way to deal with an error of this type, with humility. In a world overflowing with technological advances, the best way to fix a situation isn’t to rewrite history, but to accept history, accept human error and grow, learn, and, overall, be human. Galarraga and Joyce will forever be linked because of the imperfection of a perfect moment. Together they created history, and a history one can only hope will be repeated. A history that shows sportsmanship unseen in sports today.