Call Them Referees, Or Umpires, They're All Blind As Bats

If you added up everything I've ever written for this blog, 99% would be about futbol, and 99% of those are about Newell's Old Boys, but every now and then something happens and I'll write about another team. Sometimes something truly mind boggling happens, and I'll write about a different sport. Tonight is one of those nights.

Tonight I take a look at the world of Baseball. You see Detroit Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game... that was blown on what should have been the final out of the game. Thing is first base umpire Jim Joyce blew a call that should have ended the game. While the Tigers still won the game 3-0 over the visiting Cleveland Indians, Galarraga earning a complete game shutout, the Tigers' players and fans every where felt robbed.

A perfect game in Baseball in a game in which a team's pitcher never allows a baserunner. If your not familiar enough with Baseball to know what that means, I'm sorry. To explain the full dynamics of the sport of Baseball for those who don't know much about the sport would take far longer than I have this evening. Instead, I've been trying to come up with a comparison, and the closest I can come to a perfect game in Futbol would be a match in which the winning team not only shuts out their opponents, but never allows them possession in the attacking third of the pitch.

Now imagine that your team is playing at home and has a 3-0 lead late in the second half, the final minute of injury time is ticking down, the visitors haven't even come close to threatening to score. Suddenly the opposition sends a long ball up field, your central defender gets to the ball before the on rushing striker. The referee in charge blows his whistle, all the fans in the stadium, and players on the field are expecting the end of the match, but instead he calls a foul against the home team defender. Calling the player over, the referee reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red card.

That is the closest thing I can imagine happening in a Futbol match that would bring out the same kind of emotion as watching this bit of Baseball history unfold. And I'm not really that much of a Baseball fan. I only caught the play because I just happened to flip channels about half a minute before it happened.

Baseball and Futbol don't have much in common... except that on field officials can, and will make calls that will cause fans, managers, coaches, and players to wonder just how blind the men making the calls can be.

Here is a clip from the last inning showing the incident:

Never before has a Detroit pitcher thrown a perfect game. Thanks to Mr Joyce, it still hasn't happened.