The Beauty of Human Error

Did anyone else feel a bit disturbed during the night of, and the days that followed Umpire Jim Joyce's blown call a few weeks back? If your not a big baseball fan, basically in short, pitcher Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was one out away from pitching a perfect game. That is a game with no hits allowed, no walks allowed and no errors allowed. What should have been the final play of the game, was a missed call at first base by long time Major League umpire Jim Joyce. I'll tell you why I was and still am disturbed. It has nothing to do with being upset that Gallaraga was screwed out of pitching a perfect game, it had 100% to do with my disgust in the response he was given by sports fans.

No one should be ridiculed about a mistake they made that was completely an honest mistake. Also, we can all watch a replay over and over again in super-slow motion and talk about an umpire or referee's call and think he was an idiot. When your on the field and that play is live, and you have the pressure of knowing the importance historically of a Perfect Game, there is a lot of pressure to not miss that call. A call like that is missed about as often as every other game in baseball. The only thing is, that it often is irrelevant because its earlier in the game and/or no record is on the line. What ever happened to the beauty of human error? Sure, a blown call can be frustrating and in big games its nice to get a call turned in your teams favor, but man, its a sport. I have always felt that umpire's are part of the game and their missed calls are part of the beauty of the game. Its getting to the point with all the new rules in NBA playoff games with replay and the reviewing of plays in the NFL and so forth, that I said to my brother a few nights back, why even have people officiating games? You can just have some guy working in a booth with cameras or computers deciding calls. At least the way pro sports function you'd think that's their next step. Sometimes I find a blown call beautiful and hilarious because of the commotion it causes amongst fans. It disgusts me that people said awful things to not only Jim Joyce, but his family as well. I also think the drama that sports media creates around a scenario such as this is awful. It shouldn't be a big deal whatsoever. The people whom watched the game all know that he pitched a"perfect game", and it will be remembered probably more than any official perfect game, due to the result. Something is wrong with individuals that are willing to torture people for mistakes, especially those involved in sports. People like Steve Bartman, and Bill Buckner's lives have been altered tremendously, and some would even say ruined because of ignorant sports fans. In the big picture these mistakes are about as minimal as it gets in life.