Armando Galarraga’s Almost Perfect Game.

Arbitrarily0 at the Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

With there being no Baseball at the moment due to Covid19 we thought we would have a quick look back at some classic games and this one stuck in our minds. Anyway here is the story of the perfect game that wasn’t. As Detriot Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga loses his place in history by a shocking call!

The Time – 2nd June 2020

The Place – Comerica Park Detroit

The Game – Cleveland Indians @ Detroit Tigers

Leading up to the game only 20 pitchers had thrown a perfect game (27 up 27 down) in Baseball history and to be fair, Venezuelan pitcher Armando Galarraga was having a good but not outstanding season having only been added to the starting rotation in May and coming into the game he had a far from stellar 4.50 ERA. However, this was to be his 15 minutes of fame (well a lot more than that but you get what we mean).

Anyway, everything was going swimmingly as he retired batter after batter right the way to the final batter. Then step forward the villain of the piece, first base umpire Jim Joyce who as you will see in the video below was probably the only person in the whole stadium who thought Jason Donald was safe at first!

With instant replay reviews still four years away, the protests were waved away and the 21st perfect game came a cropper at the final hurdle.

The Call That Ended A Perfect Game

To his immense credit, Jim Joyce apologised personally to Armando and met him in public the following night, struggling to suppress his emotions.

Jim Joyce Meets Armando Galarraga

Armando Galarraga took the decision with good grace and later when interviewed about it uttered the ultimate quote “Nobody’s perfect.”

Anyway hope you enjoyed this little Baseball interlude and while you are here don’t forget to join Five Minutes Spare if you haven’t already and why not give some of our Baseball Quizzes a go? They range from the fairly easy to the damn that’s hard!