Future Perfect?
Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game this week on a close call at first base. (Story here. Video here.)
For what it’s worth, I agree with Frank Deford: Commissioner Selig should reverse the call. Deford writes:
Galarraga got the 27th guy out at first base. The game was over. He had a perfect game.
Just as simple is what Commissioner Bud Selig should do: employ that fiat that comes with his position — “for the good of the game” — overrule the umpire, and give Galarraga what we all already know he has: a perfect game.
This is the one extraordinary case in all baseball history. If Selig simply says the game ends with the 27th batter out at first base – which he was — nothing else is affected. If it had been the 25th batter or the 26th, no, you couldn’t do it. If there was any doubt at all about the call at first base, no, you couldn’t do it. If anybody — the umpire, the batter, Ebeneezer Scrooge – if anybody in the world disputed it, no, you couldn’t do it.
Selig understandably doesn’t want to establish a precedent of reviewing botched calls on the field. But it would not actually be that difficult to craft a principled justification of a one-time intervention. What’s more, this is baseball. It’s not actually the justice system. There is no stare decisis to fret about. There is no network of appellate umpires and no need to balance systemic efficiencies against the accuracy of specific findings of fact.
So I have a proposal. Selig should wait till the end of the season and then reverse the call. That way there are no incentives for players/teams/organizations to seek extraordinary interventions when other bad calls occur. The reversal could be announced simultaneously with the introduction of a new limited, but authoritative instant replay system, ensuring that the Commissioner will never again review a call on the field.
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Possibly. The other route to take is to ban the instant replay. Make it a real game using the immediate senses of the people who are there at the time. What is the point of having on the ground umpires under the instant replay system? You could just send a video feed of all the games to an underground bunker in Montana. Then, when there is a close call, dial up the expert viewer and get the ruling. It’s an immediate interlocutory appeal.
An interlocutory appeal is exactly what instant replay is. Only, there’s no other kind of appeal. And why underground in Montana? I think the moon would be better…the signal wouldn’t have to travel as far.
Maybe Congress should dedicate a new branch of the federal judiciary for this purpose. That is, if SCOTUS isn’t available. I’m sure John Roberts is ready to get behind home plate and call balls and strikes.
No one currently lives on the moon, so there is no one there to do the review. However, I fully support your suggestion to send John Roberts to the moon to review baseball replays. He can take his sidekick Sam Alito with him. With two additional open positions on the Court Kinkopf has a better chance to get one.