Armando Galarraga and Histrionic Whining

The sanctity of the baseball record books are challenged every summer in some respect. Steroids, balata-based balls, All-Star ties, 162-game seasons, midget batters, World Wars, the lowering of the mound, the raising of the mound, the designated hitter... every one of these has caused some variation in the sanctity of the record books. Any decently enlightened fan has realized that part of the job is to mentally adjust for the conditions and exceptions that have applied to the game over the years.

Whenever some new variation comes up, some writers inevitably call for adjustment to preserve the sanctity of the books. They're missing the obvious: the "sanctity" that they're preserving is only sacred because baseball fans and historians have learned to adapt their thinking. It's an insult to the fans to suggest that every record book entry requires an annotation giving every contextual detail.

The latest entry comes from ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor, who has supplied us with stupid before. He calls for Bud Selig to reverse Jim Joyce's call and declare Mr. Galarraga the author of a perfect game.

Hey Bud, don't shrug this one off

Bud Selig can get the shrug back. Right here, right now.

No, he can't. The shrug still exists. The shrug will always exist, unless we pull some Big Brother shit and destroy every copy of the news from the summer of 2002.

Mulligans aren't normally awarded in sports. Bill Buckner cannot get that Mookie grounder back, Scott Norwood cannot get wide right back, and Greg Norman cannot get a hundred Sunday putts back.

That's the whole POINT of sports. That's why we compete - to declare a winner. If everyone got do-overs, there'd be no point in competing. Everyone would just do it over until they got it right.

But Bud, this one's for you.

Ian, why?

Remember that shrug at the 2002 All-Star Game in your very own Milwaukee backyard, where you threw those bony hands in the air, slapped on your best Willy Loman expression, and told the finest baseball players in the world their spirited 11-inning contest would end in a 7-7 tie?

This is a poorly used rhetorical question couched within a poorly used rhetorical device (apostrophe) and tied to a poorly used allusion. I feel poorer, like Willy Loman near the end of that play, for reading that paragraph.

You're getting a do-over, Bud, and here's a little unsolicited advice: Don't shrug this second time around.

He didn't shrug. Also this is not the second time around; this is a totally different situation.

Invoke your best-interests-of-the-game powers to make Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce and Jason Donald and the rest of baseball whole.

I don't know why sportswriters consistently think baseball is broken or dying. Baseball has had thousands of blown calls over the years - some even in games of much more gravity than an early-season non-division matchup. Somehow, it continues. This whole article is dramatic silliness. It is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

The imperfect man pitched the perfect game, Bud, just like the old newspaper story said.

That's a reference to Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Did you other readers recognize that immediately? I had to google it.

The offending umpire, Jim Joyce, is in full agreement even as he picks through the rubble and ash of a distinguished baseball life.

Ash? Rubble? Is a volcano metaphor really appropriate right now when thousands of Icelanders are viciously dumping their geological shit all over Europe?

"It was the biggest call of my career," Joyce conceded as he reportedly paced in his dressing room, "and I kicked the [stuff] out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game."

And yet, he didn't. Everyone knows it was a perfect game. I suspect that Armando Galarraga will receive more press, notoriety, and mention than Dallas Braden ever will.

So this isn't only about granting Detroit's Galarraga his rightful corner of history, or about acknowledging that Galarraga caught Miguel Cabrera's throw and put his foot on the first-base bag before Cleveland's Donald did the same.

He HAS his rightful corner of history. And everyone already has acknowledged it.

This is about freeing Joyce from the grim prison cell that will hold him for the rest of his professional days.

Good lord, this is dramatic nonsense. Yes, he will get a lot of annoying press. If he has the sense to not buy into the hand-wringing whining of people like Ian O'Connor, he'll have a fine life.

Don Denkinger can fill you in. He once told me on the phone about his infamous blown call that turned the 1985 World Series, when he ruled Kansas City's Jorge Orta safe at first before replays showed that the Cardinals' Todd Worrell had beaten him to the bag.

And that's why Bud Selig can't reverse a call. You can't just go back and start changing calls, even if they were wrong. The game is over. Umps have always made bad calls. No amount of sentimental nonsense or played-up drama can change the fundamental nature of a sport officiated by human beings.

"It's a crushing feeling," said Denkinger, who received death threats and a never-ending stream of hate mail from gamblers and fans. "You can't imagine what a person feels when you're written about, talked about, and then they show 13 different angles of the call in slow motion."

Hate mail from gamblers? I already imagine that most sports gamblers are dummies, but I can't even fathom having the gall to risk thousands of dollars on a sports contest which has a huge luck factor to begin with, and then complaining when a person makes a good-faith mistake.

Don't want to get yelled at over a bad call? Don't become a professional baseball umpire.

Life isn't fair, but we like to think of stadiums and arenas as places to go to escape life for a few hours. Games are supposed to be fair. What went down in Comerica Park on Wednesday night was a million miles from fair.

Ian O'Connor is somehow confused into thinking that every game was perfectly fair up until June 2010. And the thing is: it actually was completely FAIR. An unbiased, independent third party who is not related to or paid by the Detroit Tigers or the Cleveland Indians organizations made an objective call with a clear view. It was completely fair. It just wasn't accurate.

So the expanded use of instant replay is the issue of the day, the item atop the commissioner's morning agenda. Only there's no time to measure the merits of technology against the charms of a sport officiated by fallible men.

What are you saying here, Ian? That if Bud makes the decision today, it'll be better than if he makes it tomorrow?

That debate isn't going to help Galarraga, or Joyce, or millions of right-minded baseball fans who need some healing ASAP.

Healing? Who out there is healing from this terrible injury wrought upon us all? A plague of locusts has struck the land thanks to the pernicious villainy of Jim Joyce!

Selig shouldn't wait. Even the city of Cleveland would be with him on this one.

Haha, Cleveland sucks.

He wouldn't be fighting a powerful and antagonistic players union over the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, and he wouldn't be flexing his pecs in an attempt to stop or expedite the sale of a team.

What? So, Mr. O'Connor, you're ENCOURAGING him to gain PR points for a cheap-shit sentimental issue like this one and make the call that would make a bunch of people feel happy but violate the sentiments of the game?

Selig would simply be using his power to call a batter out at first. If the "best interests of baseball" clause doesn't cover that, what the hell does it cover?

Eddie Gaedel is still in the books, even though the commish tried to strike him. This kind of stuff just happens in baseball, and really, nobody is hurt by it, since everyone knows Galarraga pitched a perfect game anyways.

There is only one real danger here: the precedent of allowing the commissioner to redact the results of a game based on popular outrage. That simply can't be allowed to happen - just as Ford Frick is justly hammered for insulting the fans when he tried to intervene in the record books to preserve the public's vision of righteousness.

Even the commish isn't above the rules.

"I just watched the replay 20 times," Galarraga said, "and there's no way you can call him safe."

He's right.

Baseball players, coaches and managers are taught to move on from a moment like this. Get over it. Prepare for the next day's game.

Good advice for you to take, Mr. O'Connor.

You're supposed to live and die with the good and bad breaks, and remember that the 162-game season is an endless narrative that rewards the characters who weather the most plot twists.

Sounds good to me.

But those terms of engagement just don't cut it here. There's no moving on from the damnation of the 21st perfect game in history, and the third in a month.

"Damnation". "Grim prison cell". "Healing". Good lord, the histrionic diction of this article is nearly making me swoon. If I had a wife and I lived Victorian England and I read this to her, I would need some smelling salts and my fainting chair.

This commissioner has always loved to be loved. In fact, I've never met a sports executive who cares more about his or her public standing than Bud Selig.

And that's why I'm almost surprised that he made the right decision by not caving to the immediate pressure of sentimental writers and fans. Good for Bud - by taking an unpopular stance, he avoided setting a dangerous precendent. Choosing to restore the perfect game would have been easy for Bud to do, but would have added to the weight and pressure put on future commissioners in similar situations.

He wants you to appreciate him for introducing the wild card, for authorizing the Mitchell Report, and for giving birth to the World Baseball Classic. He would also prefer it if you forgot all about that 7-7 score at the 2002 All-Star Game.

Who really hates Bud Selig for that, anyways? Actually, the real problem with that game wasn't Bud's decision to allow it to end in a tie... the real problem with that game is the nonsensical pandering of the managers trying to get as many players in the game as possible.

Well, here's your big chance, Bud. The Tigers are in the books as 3-0 winners either way.

So grab your heaviest lumber, step into the box, and remember one last thing:

Don't shrug.

He didn't, and I'm glad. If you want to see hilarious examples of incredible shitspouting braindead fluttertalk, read the comments on the ESPN article. They're so awful.

I'm Not Sick of Joba Chamberlain Anymore!!!

I just decided this now thanks to Ian O'Connor. Because I care about any topic that has idiotic columns written about it.

Joba Chamberlain accepts the challenge of carrying a Dick Butkus mentality over eight innings instead of one. He could whip himself into a three-out frenzy as a setup man, and now he wants to maintain that rage as a starter.

So that's it. Rage. Anger. Ian O'Connor is under the impression that grown men perform outside of their natural ability when they're pissed. Coming off the bench at the start of the game, we have Joba Chamberlain. Running out of the bullpen, it's The Incredible Hutt (yes, more Star Wars references). And he's.....ANGRY!!!!

Best of luck convincing Chamberlain to temper his act. Goose Gossage tried telling the kid to tame his fist-pumping fury on the mound, and Joba politely told the Goose to stuff it.

Badass.

So sure, every time Chamberlain takes the mound it will have the feel of fight night at Yankee Stadium. As a starter, Joba is good for business.

They're....going to improve on their MLB-leading 51,724 average paid attendance per game? Oh I get it. Jack up ticket prices on Joba night! People who already own tickets for those games will be charged extra at the door! Good for business! Money!

His appearances are now guaranteed in advance, meaning more people can build their days and evenings around the weather-permitting certainty of watching him pitch.

For anyone who is new to the whole "We hate the way the media treats Joba Chamberlain" thing.....just read that over and over again. Josh Hamilton is a monster that has an outside shot at the triple crown who was once a cocaine addict. Guess you should have played in New York, Josh.

But just because this move into the rotation is good for business doesn't mean it's good for the team.

You have yet to even prove that this move is somehow "good for business". Business is dollars and cents. Business has nothing to do with fans sitting at home watching games, or getting even more interest for games that are already sold the fuck out.

Chamberlain's pitch count Tuesday night matched his jersey number, 62, and included five fastballs that hit triple figures on Yankee Stadium's radar gun.

Raise your hand if you think it's interesting that Chamberlain's pitch count matched his jersey number!

::All 166 people who left comments on this article raise their hand::

Fuck my life......

In all, Chamberlain's heater averaged 95 mph. He gave the fans everything they came to see — everything except a win.

Everything they came to see? He was awful! Except for "fast pitching" he gave them NOTHING that they came to see! Do Yankees fans leave the stadium saying, "Man, seeing Joba pitch like that sure was satisfying in like every respect! But....I do really wish he had gotten a win."

In the first inning, Chamberlain walked three Blue Jays, committed a balk, surrendered a run, and fired 38 pitches.

This is the FIRST inning, mind you. Not the 5th or 8th or something when Joba is supposedly running out of the rage that fuels his good pitching. You're saying it's absolutely impossible for this type of inning to happen when he comes in as a setup man? Oh right, I forgot. He's budgeting his fist-pumping. Naturally born with only enough for an inning or two, yet being asked to throw eight on a good night, Joba Chamberlain is using only 1/4 of that in the first two innings, which explains pitching that was only 1/4 as good as usual. I am the best analyst in the world. The end.

He threw to a dozen Toronto batters across 2-1/3 innings, left with a 2-1 lead, and shook his head and muttered to himself on exit before flinging his mitt into the dugout with more than a trace of disgust.

I'm going to come right out and admit that I didn't see the game. I didn't. But the guy had only thrown 62 pitches. He wasn't pitching that well, but based on pitching quality alone, the move to take him out of the game was completely and totally unjustified. Maybe Girardi saw something mental/emotional that I didn't. But there was little-to-no performance-related excuse for pulling him so soon, and hell, shot in the dark here, that might be why he was so pissed.

Chamberlain then watched as a Joba-free bullpen gave Roy "Doc" Halladay's Blue Jays a 9-3 victory and left the Yankees a 28-30, last-place mess.

I love this argument. Thanks to Joba Chamberlain's bad pitching, the Yankees were doomed to play the rest of the game without Joba Chamberlain.

"It wasn't very good," Joba said of his performance.

Nor was the decision to make Chamberlain a starter.

See what he did there?

Out of the prairieland, Joba has become the ultimate urban legend. He's as big in the Bronx as the old courthouse building beyond the outfield wall.

I've been practicing typing subliminal messages. Check it out!

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With Mariano Rivera watching his back, Joba was 50 percent of the most devastating bullpen punch in baseball. Chamberlain-Rivera represented a more lethal combination than the Rivera-John Wetteland pairing of 1996, which gave birth to Joe Torre's dynasty.

Really? THAT gave birth to Joe Torre's dynasty? That's like saying, "The Yankees won 4-3 today, and the leadoff single by Jorge Posada in the 2nd inning was what won them the game, as he came around to score." Too much effect, not enough cause.

Teams played the Yankees knowing they were playing a seven-inning game.

On April 24th, I went to a White Sox / Yankees game at U.S. Cellular Field. Joba Chamberlain gave up a double and a single in the 9th inning to lose the the game. Every White Sox fan stood and sang "Thunderstruck" as several replaced the word "Thunder" with "Joba". It was the best night in the history of sports. Ever.

They knew they needed to take the lead before that bullpen door swung wide and Chamberlain emerged blowing smoke out of his ears.

Honestly, have you seen Carlos Marmol pitch this year? Doug Brocail? Scott Linebrink? Heath Bell? Taylor Buchholz? All of them have pitched as well, if not better, than Joba Chamberlain.

That stark reality put a tremendous burden on Yankee opponents.

Until the opponents realized, "Hey wait! We can just light up Ian Kennedy, Phil Hughes, and Andy Pettite BEFORE Joba even gets into the game!" Their pitching is last in the AL East. Even an idiot writer could see that something needed to be changed. Good middle relievers are so easy to find for a year. Almost every team in baseball has at least one reliable set-up guy, and in many cases, that guy might have been a below-average reliever over the course of his career. It's good starters that are tougher to come by.

That burden was lifted when Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman announced that Chamberlain would be their Josh Beckett of the present, and not their Jonathan Papelbon of the future.

We have to compare him to Red Sox pitchers.....why?

The Yankees reasoned that they drafted Chamberlain as a starter. "We're only honoring our scouting profile on him," Cashman said.

See, Ian, this is the best way to look at it. Chamberlain profiles as a starter. He has 2 awesome pitches, the fastball and the slider. Most great relievers have two great pitches working for them. Unlike guys better suited for the pen, Chamberlain also has a good curve and a good changeup to complement his best offerings, meaning he's equipped enough to see the same hitters several times in a game.

But outside of Alex Rodriguez's bat, Chamberlain-Rivera was the Yankees' only other weapon of mass destruction. Why trade the known for the unknown here?

There's this awesome new ice cream parlor in my town called "We Ain't Open Too Long" that is only open 3 days a week from 8 PM to 9 PM. It gets awesome business because everyone is addicted to their homemade ice cream. Because the ice cream is so good, customers want the store to be open for more hours. But the mean nasty owner is Ian O'Connor, and he's an ice cream Nazi, so he won't let the store develop to its full potential.

I'm going to have to put the "terrible similes and metaphors" label on this post, directed at myself.

The Yankees know Chamberlain is a remarkable reliever, and maybe the only man, woman or child who projects as a worthy successor to Rivera.

There are so many good fucking closers in baseball. No, it's unlikely that Rivera's successor will be as good as him. But is that enough of a big deal to justify such a great misuse of a team's asset?

No matter what their scouting reports say, the Yankees don't know that Chamberlain will be among the best starters in the game. They believe he will be, and they're sure praying he will be, but they can't tell you for sure he will be.

And for this reason, Edinson Volquez, Yovani Gallardo, and Tim Lincecum are in the pen for life, because their respective teams weren't sure if they'd be good starters. Never test a new starter, because you're not sure how they will work out. When all current starting pitchers retire, there will be no one left to pitch at the beginning of a 9-inning game, so the first 5 innings will be forever removed from baseball games.

They can only tell you that this was the plan all along. Hank Steinbrenner's plan, anyway.

The biggest problem I have with this is that Ian O'Connor thinks that this is legitimately the only reason the Yankees have for making this move.

Maybe Steinbrenner would've backed off had Cashman granted his wish and traded for Johan Santana. Maybe Hank would've given his minions a little breathing room on Joba had Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy honored their own scouting reports.

But once Hughes and Kennedy blew up, and once Santana started winning games for the Mets, Hank wasn't about to be denied his ultimate baseball fantasy — Joba in the role of staff ace.

You're writing this like Hank Steinbrenner is trying to sabotage the team or something. "Ultimate baseball fantasy?" Really?

He was a college starter at Nebraska and a minor-league starter in the Yankee system. So no, Joba wasn't walking into this as a novice.

THEN WHY THE FUCK DOESN'T HE MERIT A SHOT?? DO YOU HAVE A CLUE HOW MUCH MORE VALUABLE STARTERS ARE THAN MIDDLE RELIEVERS?????

But Chamberlain's replacements in the pen, Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins, are just like Joba in the same way that Dan Quayle was just like JFK. The Yankees complained that they might never get to Joba by leaving him in the pen.

Completely and totally illegitimate complaints, seeing as how the Yankees starting staff is pitching so well.

The Yanks might someday complain that they can't get to Rivera by leaving Chamberlain in the rotation.

At a time like this, you have to think about which concern is more serious. You're not giving me any goddamn proof of anything.

No matter how much he insists he can maintain his manic edge as a starter, Joba was born to close.

I can't WAIT until you're proven wrong. Literally, 4 years from now I'm going to be laughing my ass off at you. Because you got fired for this column. I know you did.

The Yankees keep saying that Joba can lord over a higher percentage of innings as a starter than he can as a reliever. Of course, the counterargument states that Joba can impact more games as a reliever than he can as a starter.

Ah. Two conflicting arguments. Both seem to have made a valid point. Let's think about how to rectify these. Think about the impact of having a good pitcher on the mound for more innings. Think about how being able to use Joba whenever needed in tight games gives the Yankees the advantage, and how many expected wins that advantage is worth using something like WXRL. Think about how having Joba as a starter will help minimize the innings pitched by middle relievers in games he starts, as well as how it will knock a failing young pitcher out of the rotation for some minor-league work. Think about what will be more valuable in the short-term as well as the long-term. Also think about high-leverage situations and whether the Yankees have the resources and talent to replace Chamberlain somehow in these innings. You're a writer, Ian. I don't need to teach you these things, so I trust you'll make a good argu-

The counterargument makes more sense. The more games Chamberlain appears in, the better.

I'm sold.

Tuesday night, the Yankees lost their first Joba start to another AL East team that looks a lot stronger than they do, at least for the moment. But hey, nobody could deny that Chamberlain was good for business.

I denied it! He's absolutely neutral for business!

Good for the team? The answer to that question was found on the scoreboard, not the radar gun.

Because the Yankees failed to score a lot of runs off of the ace of the best pitching staff in the American League and Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez pitched awful in the 7th inning (which, by the way, is not the inning Joba is famous for pitching as a reliver), I can absolutely say for certain that after one run in 2 1/3 innings and 62 pitches, Joba Chamberlain should never start a baseball game again. Period.