A foul most foul

As soon as it went down, Jim Joyce’s infamous call at first base to end Armando Galarraga’s chance at a perfect game had already been deconstructed and spit back into heavy rotation. It quickly registered as a trend on Twitter while folks argued if it was the worst call in a regular-season baseball game ever.

But then a funny thing happened—the whole thing was celebrated. Joyce, Galarraga, the Detroit Tigers and the sport of baseball… every last one of them were looked at as heroic and/or people to be emulated. Before anyone could digest what had happened it was the worst call ever, but then just as quickly the fastest 180-degree turn in public opinion took place and knocked it all off kilter.

Wha’ happened?

Easy. Joyce admitted he was human. He stood before everyone and did not make excuses when he said that he messed up. He apologized to Galarraga, accepted criticism stoically and offered to fix things any way that he could.

In other words, Joyce held himself accountable. Though there was no need to change the outcome of the game, machinations were in place for oversight. In the case with the imperfect game nothing was changed, though Major League Baseball says the matter was under review.

As Americans and sports fans, we demand that type of assurance that the game is on the level. After all, who wants to invest time and energy into being a fan only to see it all erased by the whims of one man? That’s why maverick referee Tim Donaghy’s admission that he fixed NBA games so offensive and made the jail sentence he served justifiable… people don’t just put money into sports, but they also give up their time. Nothing is more valuable than time.

And that’s why the finish of the World Cup match between the U.S. and Slovenia made me so angry.

I should point out that outcomes of games rarely upset me. Oh sure, when I was a kid I was disappointed if my team lost and I’ve been known to show emotion in regard to the McCaskey High basketball team. But for the most part the correct tact (I think) is to look at a game as a painting or a work of art that should be allowed to unfold organically. It’s more enjoyable to sit back, relax and let things play out.

So when a guy like referee Koman Coulibaly of Mali thrusts himself into a game and essentially determines the outcome, it’s too much to bear. For those of us who got out of bed especially early in order to watch the game, Coulibaly stole from us, too.

By now most sports fans have seen or heard about the go-ahead go that was scored by the U.S. and inexplicably waived off by because of some unexplained phantom foul. Making matters more twisted is the fact that the goal would have been exactly what the U.S. needed to advance to the knockout round of the World Cup for just the third time ever and first time since 2002. Because the game against Slovenia ended in a tie, the U.S. must win its final game against Algeria to guarantee a berth in the round of 16.

The U.S. team seemingly did its job by beating Slovenia, the referee, however, had a different agenda.

The part that’s most maddening about how the debacle unfolded is that there was no explanation or oversight. Sure, Coulibaly likely won’t referee another game as big as a World Cup match, but why was there no system in place to make sure mistakes like this one cannot occur? Or, why was there no official call made on the spot or comment from FIFA?

Hey, some of us got up early to watch the World Cup. Our day was ruined! 

Anyway, Sports Illustrated soccer writer Grant Wahl has seen this all before and offered this in his latest from South Africa:

As much as I love soccer, I do get extremely frustrated by how often the postgame discussion revolves around the referee's decisions. No sport, not even NBA basketball, approaches soccer when it comes to officiating controversy. And no sport does less to provide teams and fans with explanations for refereeing decisions. The fact is that we may never know why Coulibaly waved off the U.S. goal -- FIFA doesn't allow a pool reporter to interview the referee, as most sports do, and I got no response when I e-mailed FIFA's head press officer in search of an explanation.

In the postgame mixed zone, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said he hadn't seen replays yet, but he had received 43 text messages from people who had watched the replay and not seen a foul. “We don't know what the foul was,” said Gulati. “We'll ask, but they're not required to tell us.”

Like Wahl, I love soccer—especially the World Cup. But I can understand why a lot of Americans haven’t warmed up to the sport because of things that happened in Friday’s match. In the U.S. sports leagues the officials explain the call on the spot… it was holding or clipping. Safe or out, foul or play on. Sure, that doesn’t mean a call isn’t open to second-guessing, but at least we know what is happening and why.

Hey, it’s our time—we’re owed at least that much.

Bidding The Kid Adieu

By now everyone has had a chance to see the replay and theaftermath of Wednesday’s blown call by umpire Jim Joyce in the not-so perfect, perfect game from Tigers’ right-hander Armando Galarraga. Everyone has formulated some sort of opinion about what should (or should not) be done to rectify the issue of a problem easily fixed.

But you know what, the fact that Joyce might have made one of the top 2 worst calls in the history of the game is part of the reason why we love baseball. It’s imperfect and it gives us something to debate without being wrong. Sure, it’s probably no fun to be Jim Joyce or a major league umpire these days, but everyone is going to come out of this OK. Already people view Joyce’s mea culpa as dignified and have come to learn about Galarraga and the classy way he dealt with adversity.

Of course there was no real adversity for Galarraga. He’s seen as a hero who pitched a perfect game plus one extra out. It wasn’t quite the Pirates’ Harvey Haddix going 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves in 1959, or Pedro taking a perfect game into the 10^th inning in 1995, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

In fact, just the thought of a perfect game was compelling enough for me to ignore Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final happening right in front of me in the Wachovia Center press box and dial up the game from Detroit on the laptop. Interestingly, it is the flaw of the perfection we’re going to remember forever. We might not have known a lot about Joyce or Galarraga, but we sure do now.

What was most disappointing about the imperfect perfecto was the fact that it went down not long after the news of the retirement of Ken Griffey Jr. At age 40 and nursing a .184 batting average in 33 games, The Kid decided he didn’t want to hold back the Mariners any longer. Moreover, he wanted to go home to be with his kids.

After all, it was his kids that motivated Griffey as he came down toward the end of his career after the injuries had thwarted his chance at 800 career homers.

Just typing that—800 home runs—seems unbelievable. But considering Griffey lost parts of six years of his career to injuries, it’s not unreasonable to think that he could have rewritten the record books.

As it stands, Griffey’s numbers aren’t too shabby. He hit 630 homers, with 1,836 RBIs, an MVP Award and 13 All-Star Games, including the 1992 game where he was the MVP. Statistically, Griffey’s numbers sit next to Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays and he could be the first unanimous Hall-of-Fame inductee five years from now.

Griffey’s allure goes far beyond statistics, though. The truth is that during the 1990s there was no more compelling or interesting athlete in America than Ken Griffey Jr. For those of us that only ever saw Willie Mays on grainy, black-and-white highlight reels and grew up watching thick-legged and paunchy players like Lou Piniella or Greg Luzinski play the outfield, Griffey spoke to us. Not only could he blast one off the warehouse during the Home Run Derby at Camden Yards, but also could run down a fly ball anywhere on the diamond or jump over the outfield wall to pull back a homer.

His smile was like a neon sign and he was riotously funny on an episode of The Simpsons. He wore his hat backwards and went on those silly MTV Rock-n-Jock things. Better yet, he wasn’t that much older than us. He was from our generation and until he broke into the majors when he was 19, we had no representation in big-league sports.

Griffey was kind of one of us.

He was a ballplayer, too. Actually, he was the son of a ballplayer and grew up playing with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and the rest of his dad’s teammates on The Big Red Machine. His was a charmed life that seemed like a dream until it became too much.

Writer types who had been around said the attention and hero worship made Griffey surly. When he showed up in a visiting ballpark with the Mariners or Reds, there were always hundreds of press types waiting and waiting for him to walk into the clubhouse so they could fire questions at him. It could have been a Tuesday night in Cleveland during August, but everything stopped when Griffey showed up.

Then the injuries came. He had his hamstring put back together with titanium screws in an experimental surgery now called, “The Junior Operation.” The hamstring problems were followed by foot and knee issues that required surgery, and a groin injury cost him much of the 2007 season.

Interestingly, Griffey seemed happy during the last few years of his career. After he slugged his 500^th career homer and the constraints on his time dissipated dramatically, Griffey turned into a guy who held court with some of the out-of-town writers in the Reds clubhouse. One day I even asked him about the old days with thousands screaming his name to these twilight years where only a few of us wanted to talk about baseball with him.

And you know what? We couldn’t get him to stop. He was like a sieve, waxing on about how his kids loved football more than baseball and how he had no interest in soccer. He joked with teammates, telling Adam Dunn that he looked like the lead character in the ‘80s TV show, “The Greatest American Hero.” He told Todd Zolecki that if he frosted the tips of his hair he might look exactly like Cole Hamels. Actually, he just talked about whatever like he was one of the guys. Still, no matter what, you couldn't get him to stop talking about his kids. It always came back to the kids.

Age mellowed Griffey. He loved being a ballplayer, but loved being a father even more. Being a father to Trey, Taryn and Tevinis what it’s all about to the man they called The Kid.

So as he heads off into the sunset in a season where the pitchers are in control, it’s nice to remember Griffey on the field as the joyous face of the game. At home with the family it sounds like it’s the same deal.