Perfection Lost, Perfection Gained

Last night I turned the Detroit Tigers game on TV to find out that it was the ninth inning and Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game. For those of you who are not big baseball fans, this means that every batter he faced he had gotten out. Not a single Cleveland Indian had reached base. In the last 110 years, this has occurred only 20 times (although, oddly, two of those times were last month).

Galarraga got the first two batters out in the ninth inning (thanks in part to a sparkling defensive play by center fielder Austin Jackson). Then Jason Donald stepped to the plate. He hit a ground ball toward first base. Miguel Cabrera fielded the ball and threw to Galarraga covering first base. He appeared (as replays later confirmed) to touch first base about half a step before the Donald and the Tigers began to celebrate.

Unfortunately for all involved, this is where things went all wrong. The first base umpire, Jim Joyce, recognized throughout baseball as one of the best umpires in the game, signalled “SAFE!” After the game, Joyce would (having seen the replay) admit that he blew the call, go to the Tigers locker room, and personally apologize to Galarraga.



Jeff Pearlman suggests today at CNN that had Joyce made the correct call and Galarraga been credited with a perfect game, that would actually not be history-making at all, what with 20 people already having accomplished the feat. This point is debateable depending on your semantics.

But what Pearlman went on to say was less debateable:

You want real history? You want genuine history? Take a 28-year-old journeyman pitcher with a 20-18 lifetime record. Have him throw a perfect game, then have that perfect game taken away on a literal last-breath call. Watch him accept the umpire's apology afterward with class and heart; watch him hug the man as he cries in his arms; watch him earn the respect of a nation eternally longing for heroes.

Watch him become a singular beacon of righteousness.

That's Armando Galarraga.

That's a hero.

That's historic.

I don’t know anything about Galarraga’s personal faith (if indeed he professes any). I do know this though: He dealt with the situation with the kind of grace and class that should mark Christian behavior. Christians are reminded in God’s word, “(A)s the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13), and, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

May we all be reminded through this good example of a baseball pitcher of the even greater (in fact, perfect) example given to us by Christ Jesus. And let us remember too that Jesus was not only an example for us of godly living, but also (and more importantly) an offering for us of sacrificial death.

As the Apostle Paul writes, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), and, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In this we see, just as surely as Armando Galarraga had perfection taken from him, so we have perfection freely given to us!