The moment which stood out most to me happen sometime over the summer at Comerica Park in Detroit, home of the Detroit Tigers. Armando Galarraga was the pitcher that day, and what happened that day will go down in sports history.
In baseball there is a rare achievement known as a perfect game. For those of you not familiar with baseball, a perfect game is an achievement when a pitcher does not allow a player to reach base, so 27 at bats no player reaches first base. This is a rarity in baseball, out of the 100+ years of major league baseball, there have only been twenty some perfect games thrown. Galarraga finds himself in the 9th inning, one out away from a perfect game. The whole world has their eyes on this game to see some baseball history being made. Galarraga pitches the ball, the ball is hit to the first baseman, Galarraga runs to first base and catches the throw to force out the runner, however first base umpire Jim Joyce calls the runner safe. Replay shows that the force out beat the runner by a good couple of feet, which would have given Galarraga the perfect game. You could hear the heartbreak of Galarrage and fans a like with that call. Galarraga would retire the next batter.
The call was featured all over the news and ESPN. Umpire Jim Joyce received threated phone calls, and was under constant harrassment the rest of that day. Joyce was scheduled to officiate the Tiger's game the next day, he did not know what to expect. As Joyce walked out to home plate to collect the line up cards from both team Galarraga met him at home plate with the line up card and shook his hand forgiving him for missing the call the previous day.
This is one aspect at sports that I love to see. It took a real man to do what Galarraga did that day by going out and forgiving a man who knew that he made a mistake. Even though the game will not go down in history as a perfect game, it will go down in history as a moment of great sportsmanship.
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