Not being a sports fan I had to look up what happened.

I agree, his apology was elegant.

On a related issue, I keep thinking a "perfect" game would be 27 pitches, all strikes, no balls.

It was a horrible call, but I appreciate Jim Joyce's apology. One of the things I love so much about baseball is that human error is part of the game. Screw instant replay. Bad calls happen all the time; they tend to even out. It just sucks enormously that this particular bad call had so much weight.

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On a related issue, I keep thinking a "perfect" game would be 27 pitches, all strikes, no balls.

Man, that would be a "fantasy" game. I'm not sure if any pitcher has ever thrown 27 strikes in a row. Typically, if you can get through a single inning having thrown just 10-15 pitches, you're doing great. But 27 pitches for an entire game? Well, I guess it's not impossible, but... it's pretty much impossible.

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It was a horrible call, but I appreciate Jim Joyce's apology. One of the things I love so much about baseball is that human error is part of the game. Screw instant replay. Bad calls happen all the time; they tend to even out. It just sucks enormously that this particular bad call had so much weight.

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On a related issue, I keep thinking a "perfect" game would be 27 pitches, all strikes, no balls.

Man, that would be a "fantasy" game. I'm not sure if any pitcher has ever thrown 27 strikes in a row. Typically, if you can get through a single inning having thrown just 10-15 pitches, you're doing great. But 27 pitches for an entire game? Well, I guess it's not impossible, but... it's pretty much impossible.

No one would ever be allowed to throw 27 strikes in a row...he'd be down 9 runs from people hitting all those strikes.

Not if I'm pitching.

I bet every umpire makes a call that he regrets the rest of his life. He loves the game. He did the right thing. He made the right call even though it was the wrong call to make. My hat is off to him.

BTW, I'll be in the box seats behind home plate June 19 Phillies @home against the Twins. Day game. I love to watch baseball. Usually, while on vacation, Mrs. Sanford and I try to catch a local minor league game but this year we're in Philadelphia. It's major league this year.

BTW, never pass up a minor league game. Cheap and a lot of fun watching these guys play knowing the scouts are in the stands. Incidentally, that goes for the umpires as well.

Have a great day at the park, Lamont. I haven't been to Citizens Bank yet, but it's clearly beautiful. I need to make it there.

No place like Citi Field, though. Such a wonderful park. Going to the game is really one of my favorite things to do. I'm completely happy when I'm at the ballpark. The colors of brick, steel, and grass; the sky above the stadium; the food; the hot girls in Mets gear. Even if the Mets lose, it's easy to have a great time.

I used to live across the street from the Newark Bears stadium. After work, I'd get off the train and just go to the game. At the time, the Bears had Jose Canseco and Ricky Henderson on the team, so it was awesome to see those guys up close. On Saturday nights, after the game, they'd shoot off fireworks, and, if I was home, I'd be able to watch from my 14th floor windows. Pretty awesome.

Anyway. Yeah, baseball is the best.

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Even in fantasy baseball land, 27 straight "strikes" would yield only 9 outs.

Concrete proof, if needed, that I am not a sports fan.

I like Stephen's point that human error is part of the game. I understand the desire for perfection in calls and the extensive use of replays. Yet, mistakes are part of the game - including those of the empire.

Baseball tracks and counts player errors. Maybe it should track umpire errors as well.

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Baseball tracks and counts player errors. Maybe it should track umpire errors as well.

That's a great idea. I think something like this is already underway; they just don't make the "stats" public. MLB umpires have been under heavy scrutiny over the last few years for their poor play-calling. Umps have become far too present in the game.

Baseball is somehow different from other team sports.

I know a number of scientists and other extremely intelligent thoughtful people that love baseball. They speak of its rhythms, elegance, embrace its imperfections.

While not a believer, I hope this is never lost.

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Baseball is somehow different from other team sports.

Baseball is different in lots of ways, I think. Baseball, in my opinion, has a depth and intricacy that other sports lack. There is so much going on in every play, each situation completely filled with possibility, each player's role connected to the whole, but also extremely distinct.

There is magic in baseball. Take, for instance, Armando Galarraga's bid at a perfect game. In the top of the 9th inning, he allowed a massive drive to center field that was tracked down and snared by Austin Jackson, over his shoulder(!), as he sprinted toward the outfield wall to save the perfect game. Then, with 2 outs, Galarraga loses the perfect game not only to a bad call, but to a bad call on a little dinker to the second baseman. Tragic!

In no other sport that I'm aware of can you succeed 30% of the time and be a star. A batting average of .300 is outstanding. But consider the skill necessary in hitting, with a thin, round piece of wood, a small round object traveling anywhere between 60 and 100MPH, coming from an elevated mound, just 60ft away, and moving left to right or up and down. Awesome.

Baseball is at once a team sport (there are 8 position players on the field supporting the pitcher) and a one-on-one competition between the pitcher and hitter. And the offense is always outnumbered by the defense. So cool.

In baseball, you're not trying to cross over into your opponent's side of the field of play to deposit an object into a net.

There's no time limit in baseball. You play until you win.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but George Carlin said it best. (I think this has been posted here before.)

I love baseball.

Just thinking about this a little more, and to bring it back to Buddha's point: This whole thing kinda works to remind us of how beautiful baseball is. Jim Joyce made an error -- a horrible, historic error -- but took responsibility for it, and in doing so, received the support of MLB and baseball fans everywhere. He's respected more now than ever. How often do we see this in other areas of life, such as politics?

What happened to Galarraga's perfect game is just as tragic, in the world of baseball, as the oil spill is to our environment.

Contrast Joyce's reaction and its consequences with how BP reacted to the oil spill.

We rarely see the type of ownership for mistakes that we witness in baseball. Baseball teaches us to raise our hand when we made the mistake.

Nobody raises their hand at the gun range. "My bad, sorry".

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Baseball is somehow different from other team sports.

Baseball is different in lots of ways, I think. Baseball, in my opinion, has a depth and intricacy that other sports lack. There is so much going on in every play, each situation completely filled with possibility, each player's role connected to the whole, but also extremely distinct.

There is magic in baseball. Take, for instance, Armando Galarraga's bid at a perfect game. In the top of the 9th inning, he allowed a massive drive to center field that was tracked down and snared by Austin Jackson, over his shoulder(!), as he sprinted toward the outfield wall to save the perfect game. Then, with 2 outs, Galarraga loses the perfect game not only to a bad call, but to a bad call on a little dinker to the second baseman. Tragic!

In no other sport that I'm aware of can you succeed 30% of the time and be a star. A batting average of .300 is outstanding. But consider the skill necessary in hitting, with a thin, round piece of wood, a small round object traveling anywhere between 60 and 100MPH, coming from an elevated mound, just 60ft away, and moving left to right or up and down. Awesome.

Baseball is at once a team sport (there are 8 position players on the field supporting the pitcher) and a one-on-one competition between the pitcher and hitter. And the offense is always outnumbered by the defense. So cool.

In baseball, you're not trying to cross over into your opponent's side of the field of play to deposit an object into a net.

There's no time limit in baseball. You play until you win.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but George Carlin said it best. (I think this has been posted here before.)

I love baseball.

George Carlin also said: "Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected."

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Baseball is somehow different from other team sports.

Baseball is different in lots of ways, I think. Baseball, in my opinion, has a depth and intricacy that other sports lack. There is so much going on in every play, each situation completely filled with possibility, each player's role connected to the whole, but also extremely distinct.

There is magic in baseball. Take, for instance, Armando Galarraga's bid at a perfect game. In the top of the 9th inning, he allowed a massive drive to center field that was tracked down and snared by Austin Jackson, over his shoulder(!), as he sprinted toward the outfield wall to save the perfect game. Then, with 2 outs, Galarraga loses the perfect game not only to a bad call, but to a bad call on a little dinker to the second baseman. Tragic!

In no other sport that I'm aware of can you succeed 30% of the time and be a star. A batting average of .300 is outstanding. But consider the skill necessary in hitting, with a thin, round piece of wood, a small round object traveling anywhere between 60 and 100MPH, coming from an elevated mound, just 60ft away, and moving left to right or up and down. Awesome.

Baseball is at once a team sport (there are 8 position players on the field supporting the pitcher) and a one-on-one competition between the pitcher and hitter. And the offense is always outnumbered by the defense. So cool.

In baseball, you're not trying to cross over into your opponent's side of the field of play to deposit an object into a net.

There's no time limit in baseball. You play until you win.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but George Carlin said it best. (I think this has been posted here before.)

I love baseball.

Stephen, You and Carlin spelled it out beautifully. I have little patience with my macho co-workers who insist football is a real man's sport and baseball is boring. I tell them, "you're boring!" And I tell them if you think football is "action-packed" try timing the actual duration of play from snap to whistle and add it up. Mere minutes in the hours. A good football game can be exciting, but the spectacle and militarism has become a self-parody. Baseball has a graceful dignity punctuated by explosive moments of intensity and power.

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Baseball has a graceful dignity punctuated by explosive moments of intensity and power.

Yes. I like that very much.

Great descriptions.

I at least now have an intellectual appreciation of why others enjoy watching the sport.

My lack of interest in watching any sport is probably due to an intrinsic hard-wiring fault.

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Golf is that way, too. But it's for wusses.

I'll never be old enough to either golf or ride a Harley.

Had great seats behind home base looking straight down the 3rd base line. It turned out to be a great game. Twins got 3 points first at bat. Phillies slowly gained the lead. At the bottom of 8th inning it was Twins 4 Phillies 9. Top of the 9th and the Twins tied it up. Went 11 innings before the Twins upset the Phillies. Even got to see a fight in the row behind me. Seems Philly fans don't like people taking their seats. The guy next to me told me if this was an Eagle game everybody would be in a fight and going to jail. I loved it. Right up my alley.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Twins-beat-Phillies-in-11-innnings

And who would the Phins and the Twillies be?

Lamont, that was an amazing game! I caught the first couple of innings and then watched the highlights over and over again. I hate the Phillies so much, I was happy when the Twins came out with a big lead, then disheartened to see Philly take it right back, then psyched to see them lose it in the end. Ah ha!

Great game, though, between two very good teams.