Joyce Speaks, More Blown Calls, & Instant Replay

Here's Jim Joyce talking about the call:


I give him credit, he admitted he was wrong, and he sounded very upset. He also went to the Tigers clubhouse to personally apologize to Galarraga.

But that wasn't the only blown call around the majors last night. There were two others; one call cost the Rays a run, and the other cost the Twins a game.

In the Rays-Blue Jays game Ben Zobrist singled and drove in Sean Rodriguez, but the Jays appealed at third, umpire Angel Hernandez said he didn't touch third and called him out. The only problem was that he did.

Later in the night, the Mariners and Twins were tied at one in the bottom of the tenth inning. Seattle had runners on first and second with two out and Ichiro at the plate. On a 2-2 pitch he hit a slow grounder towards the middle, Matt Tolbert fielded the ball and flipped it to J.J. Hardy at short. The throw beat Josh Wilson to second, but Dale Scott called him safe, and Ryan Langerhans came in to score the winning run.

Keith Olbermann, among others, believes it's time for something to be done. He wrote last night that MLB should expand the use of instant replay, and in the case of Galarraga's ruined perfecto, reverse Joyce's call.

The Commissioner should appoint an emergency committee to examine the expansion of replay on a formalized basis with set rules. And in the interim, in fairness to Armando Galarraga, in fairness to Jason Donald, in fairness to the fans, and especially in fairness to Jim Joyce, he ought to do a little ad hoc of his own: overrule Joyce's safe call and give Galarraga what he in fact accomplished, and only the arrogance of authority is denying him - the perfect game he pitched tonight in Detroit, the majors' third this season, second in five days, and fourth in the 135 days of play dating back to Mark Buehrle's job last season.

This is not the time to stick to the rules. The rules failed the sport tonight.

I have to agree with on both counts. Reversing the call would be unprecedented, but in this case it's the only fair thing to do and nobody suffers from it. Galarraga threw a perfect game and anyone with a pulse knows it. Make it official.

Two questions for you:

1) Should Selig reverse the call?
2) Should MLB expand instant replay?