Let's Have a Little Perspective

It did not take long for the Twitterverse and the other social media to start wringing its collective hands after Jim Joyce blew the call that would have rightfully given Armando Galarraga a perfect game. An amazing third perfect game in a month have baseball went well over 100 years with only 18 all-time.

Tweet, after Facebook post after Egyptian hieroglyphics claimed that this was the ... WORST ... CALL ... EVER! Oblivious to Hitler's decision to invade Russia, evidentially.

This is why you grow to hate society, actually. Well, there is more but this a good jumping off point. There is no way this was the worst call ever and not even close to the worst call in the last, what 25 years. I can already think of three that were worse. Don Dekinger cost the Cardinals the 1985 World Series. Jeffrey Maier launched the legend of Derek Jeter (imagine if that would have just been an F9 as it should have been). And let's not forget Doug Eddings in the 2005 ALCS.

Heck, if you want to put Eddie Guns in here for his bad call against the Chargers in 2008 and the phantom pass, feel free.

The point is, all of those calls came during the postseason. At least one cost a team a world championship. One might have killed a franchise. And the other possible started the Ohio State of the MLB.

At least Galarraga kept perspective by acknowledging that his team still won the game. Not to go Herman Edwards here, but you play to win the game.

Of course, we could cry about replay. I don't know. Baseball is one of the few sports that still embraces its past. The NFL puts its players on the streets to die. The NBA is featuring its two storied franchises once again playing for the finals, but it's LeBron James who will be on Larry King Live on Friday night to talk about his impending free agency. So if baseball wants to continue to toil in the human element, so be it.

Although those excessive delays wouldn't matter much to Angels fans because the beer cutoff does not come until the end of the eighth inning. And for those of you who believe that Galarraga was robbed of a celebration, how different would it have been if -- after that play -- the umpires huddled in the dugout for five minutes and then gave him the perfect game.

Would have been around the game. The Tigers fans should look at the bright side and rejoice that nobody was harmed in an excessive celebration.

And was we know, that would have been the WORST ... INJURY ... EVER.

So let's not lose our perspective here. It's not like Joyce is allowing that underground pipeline to continue to pump oil into the Gulf Coast. And let's move on.