{"id":2695,"date":"2020-05-13T14:01:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T14:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/mlb\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2020-12-03T14:48:28","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T14:48:28","slug":"the-perfect-game-that-wasnt-the-worst-call-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/mlb\/the-perfect-game-that-wasnt-the-worst-call-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Game That Wasn’t! The Worst Call Ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Armando Galarraga’s Almost Perfect Game.<\/h1>\n
\"Armando

Arbitrarily0 at the Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a> pitcher Armando Galarraga loses his place in history by a shocking call!<\/p>\n

The Time – 2nd June 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Place – Comerica Park Detroit<\/b><\/p>\n

The Game – Cleveland Indians @ Detroit Tigers<\/strong><\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n