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Nobody's Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History
Nobody's Perfect Two Men One Call and a Game for Baseball History Author:Armando Galarraga, Jim Joyce, Daniel Paisner The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. No hits, no walks, no men reaching base. 27 batters up, 27 down. In 130 years of Major League Baseball history (that's nearly 400,000 games), it has happened only 20 times. This past June 2nd, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga needed only 83 pitches to throw baseball?s 21st ... more »perfect game. Except that?s not how the game entered the record books.
That?s because Jim Joyce, a veteran umpire with more than twenty years of big league experience, the man voted the best umpire in the game in 2010 by baseball?s players, missed the call at first base on what would have been the final out of the perfect game. “No, I did not get the call correct,? Joyce said after seeing a replay. “I kicked the sh*t out of it. … I took a perfect game away from that kid.?
Rather than throw a tantrum, Galarrag simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound and took care of business, recording the final out of what was now a one hit complete game shutout. “Nobody?s perfect,? he said later in the locker room.
Umpires and pitchers are more likely to be arguing balls and strikes, kicking dirt and getting in each other's faces than they are to be co-authors of a book. But when Joyce's missed call erased Galaraga's history-making accomplishment from the record books, and the story of the game snowballed into one of the biggest sports stories in years, "usual" went out the window. With a skilled collaborator, Galarraga and Joyce have come together in Nobody's Perfect to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports up until this pivotal moment, and beyond.
Galarraga's career began as a teenager in Venezuela. Tall, with lots of promise, he started to attend one of many upstart baseball academies in the morning and regular school in the afternoon. Eventually Armando caught the eye of a major league team at an tryout, and at age 16, he was offered a professional contract. Galarraga writes with refreshing honesty about his naivete when it came to the deal. His mother was a chemistry teacher, his father trained as a marine biologist, but they took the $3,500 offered by the Montreal Expos, and that was it. Armando was a professional.
He had a hard road to the majors, but not an atypical one. He'd make a step forward, then get knocked back. Pitching in the winter leagues in Venezuela one year, he overused his arm, and though he felt hurt, the big league team's doctors claimed numerous MRIs showed no damage. Soon he was hearing whispers in the clubhouse questioning his strength and courage, in graphic slang he was just starting to understand. But finally he was proven right--he needed "Tommy John" surgery, where a ligament in his elbow was replaced with one from his leg. A long painful recuperation followed, away from family and friends in a foreign country (the U.S.). Touching, eye-opening annecdotes abound. For example, Galarraga ate mostly at Subway since he could point to what he wanted.
Galarraga married an American woman, a level-headed professional (she's a physical therapist). He writes of their relationship, of how together they struggled through the ups and downs of the minor leagues. One year, rather than getting the major league call-up he expected, Galarraga was sent back down a rung, to help out a minor league squad in the playoffs. So distraught, he missed his flight and the two had to drive over 600 miles through the night so he could pitch. He did okay; they lost the series.
Galarraga had a strong season for the Detroit Tigers in 2008--he finished fifth in the voting for American League Rookie of the Year--for which he was awarded the honor of starting the Tigers' first game at home in 2009. But he didn't fare well at spring training in 2010 and started the season with the AAA Toledo Mudhens (the home town of Jim Joyce, as it so happens). By the famous night in June, Galarraga had notched a career record of 51-55 and pitched for twelve teams in three organizations. He'd even been traded on his honeymoon.
Jim Joyce came to the professional game later than Galarraga. He grew up in Toledo, Ohio, the son of parents who both worked at the local Jeep factory. His father umpired little league games but quit after the unsportsmanlike behavior of parents took the fun out of it. Joyce was a pitcher himself, and he played college ball at Bowling Green, just good enough to have a possible shot at the minors, but it wasn't in the cards. After graduation he found himself working at the Jeep factory, facing a lifetime of repetitive labor. No matter how well-paid (and this was a good, secure, benefits-laden job) he couldn't take it. After saving hard for the tuition, Joyce gave notice, hopped in his car, and fled to Florida for umpire school.
The road to the majors for an ump is just as hard as for a player, possibly even harder. The pay is certainly worse, there's no promise of a big payday, and few have the same romantic ideas of the minor leagues for umpires as they do for players. It took Joyce a full decade to reach the big leagues, during which he fell in love, started a family, tried to settle into an adult life all while scraping together off-season work and skimping on his expenses in all the small minor league towns to send extra money home. But once Joyce caught his big break (written about in the book), he reached the show and has done remarkably well. He is widely seen as one of the best umpires in the game, and he has worked two All-Star games and thirteen postseason series, honors doled out only to the best.
Nobody?s Perfect alternates between these two fascinating characters, telling their story in their own, unique voices. It is rich with anecdotes and inside information about lives, but also insight into this tremendous, unforgettable game.
Joyce writes about the growing realization that he is involved in a special game (coincidentally, he worked 2nd base on Dallas Braden's perfect game earlier in the season), the atmosphere in the stadium as it progressed and as Austin Jackson made an incredibly game-saving catch, his view on the pivotal play, and the aftermath, as he realized he had made a mistake. He writes of Jim Leland, the Tiger's manager visiting him in the umpire's locker room (an unheard of irregularity) to share a beer and a cigarette. You're not supposed to smoke there, but at that time, who was going to complain? He writes of struggling with his mistake, of breaking the news to his mother, of sleeping in his boyhood home in Toledo that night, and of how his father, only recently deceased would have reacted.
Galarraga tells of his gameplan, how unusual he pitched the game (he threw only fastballs to the first 9 hitters), and the mentality of a pitcher in such an usual game. Galarraga was facing Fausto Carmona of the Indians, and Carmona was also pitching a gem. Galarraga writes of how, though he wouldn't root against his teammates, quick innings helped him keep his rhythm, and he worried that rallies would last too long. Galarraga's grandmother back home in Caracas refused to move during the game, lest she move jinx her grandson.
This is just a taste of the fun, insider's look at two lives in baseball, at a singular tremendous achievement, and at an enduring moment of pure grace and sportsmanship that readers will find in Nobody's Perfect. It's a unique and delightful book.
Selections from the extensive commentary on the game
“There is much to be said for ‘perfection? in any human endeavor. Yet we learn at our mother?s knee that we can hardly aspire to attain that august level of conduct. We are frail humans and we make mistakes. … We who love the game also love its imperfections and failures, because we understand the importance of redeeming our failures by better performance. We may be odd to be willing to confess error and to admit mistakes. But the humanity of our effort can, as [Tigers Manager Jim] Leyland has shown, provide lessons about civility that extend beyond our little game.? —Fay Vincent, former commissioner or Major League Baseball
“This is an amazing story. … The magnanimity of Galarraga. The honesty and courage of Joyce, everybody coming together makes it one of those classic, human, baseball stories.?—Ken Burns
"I feel sorry for the umpire, and I just feel real badly for the kid. He's probably wondering right now whose side God is on.?—Don Larsen, the only man to pitch a perfect game in the World Series
“[A] wonderful example of sportsmanship and maturity.?—George Will
“It is the essence of human heartbreak for as long as there have been human hearts, to make a mistake, important and equally obvious, to yearn to go back in time and correct it, erase it from the pages of the past, to do anything to take it back, anything to make it not so. That essential angst of our existence played out on a baseball field in Detroit.? —Keith Olbermann
“Joyce and Galarraga, otherwise largely unknown until fate conspired to bring them together for the 27th out that wasn't, made the evening a beautiful one for baseball. How they responded to the blown call, and not the call itself, became what is most important. … It was a night on which Galarraga and Joyce made baseball proud, when the game was never more human and never more right, and it took one man to be so obviously wrong. Baseball was fortunate to have both men be the ones to meet at first base in the eye of this storm. ?—Tom Verducci, SI.com
“The real human grace that both [Galarraga] and Jim Joyce displayed — a pitcher and umpire, as natural adversaries as cats and dogs — became a portrait of inspiration that's bigger than the fine print in any record books. You know what? I think it was a perfect game.? —Scott Simon, NPR