Baseball commissioner Bud Selig never met a crisis he didn't mishandle...until last Thursday, when he refused to overrule the erroneous umpiring call that cost Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game.
It's as simple as this: baseball doesn't have an instant replay rule for bang-bang plays on the basepaths. Last week's incident makes a compelling if not unassailable case in favour of instant replay, but until such time as it's actually adopted, everyone has to live within the existing rules, and if the rules aren't sacrosanct, what's the point of having them?
Selig's well-earned reputation as a bumbler makes him an easy target for criticism, and Montreal baseball fans harbor a special disdain for the commissioner for the way he helped facilitate the demise of the Expos, but the fact is he went by the book last week. The alternative was to unilaterally rewrite the book without going through the proper channels and procedures, which would have been a much greater abdication of his responsibilities than kowtowing to public sentiment for the sake of political expediency.
The most remarkable element in the imperfect perfect game fiasco was the reaction of the parties directly involved. Umpire Jim Joyce demonstrated remorse and repentance of near-Biblical proportions, to the point where he's being universally hailed as a standup guy for admitting his mistake and personally apologizing to Galarraga in an emotional meeting at home plate the next day. If the instant replay rule had been in play, that deeply human and morally uplifting part of the story would never have transpired.
That's not to say Joyce is completely off the hook. Baseball has its unwritten rules as well as its written ones, and although he evoked widespread public sympathy with his heartfelt mea culpa, Joyce violated the most sacred unwritten rule of them all: "There's no crying in baseball."
By the way, there's one notable exception to that rule, and it applies whether or not you're wearing a cup.
