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"Oops."

Don't pretend like you haven't said it. Don't pretend like you haven't felt it, even if nobody was around to notice your most recent of mistakes.

It defines humanity as much as opposable thumbs.

The ability to make a choice - and often incorrectly - felled Jim Joyce, an umpire with more than two decades of experience.

Yet, it will be seconds that define his career, seconds spent denying Armando Galaragga of baseball immortality.

With only one out needed to ensure a perfect game, the 28-year-old Venezuelan, with nothing more than inconsistency defining his career to that point, secured the weak ground ball that should have redefined his name in baseball almanacs.

He sprinted to cover first base as Miguel Cabrera ranged to his right and made a clean throw to the pitcher - newly vaunted to elite status.

It was 27 up, 27 down for perfect game No. 21 in baseball history, No. 1 in Tigers' history - until it wasn't.

A fraction of a moment yielded celebration, before Joyce threw a massive wet blanket over the crowd and crowd-by-extension following live via technology of choice.

The first instinct is to question your own eyes. An experienced professional standing just feet away called Jason Donald safe.

Then the sickness set in. As if any one region of our country needed more sickness and shock, here the fates handed Detroit and its Tigers fans just a bit more.

How could it be? The Tigers even had that signature moment, a rangy catch by rookie center fielder Austin Jackson, which immediately drew comparisons to the owner of baseball's all-time greatest catch, Willie Mays.

His Detroit teammates were downright giddy. Laughing and jumping in the rare kind of way that reminds you behind all the pomp, circumstance and dollars, baseball is a game played by children masked by big boy bodies in big boy clothes.

After that out - the first of the ninth inning - there was no way it could be broken up.

And, really, it wasn't. Except it was.

Neither Donald nor the Cleveland Indians dugout could believe what transpired. The team was given a golden ticket it didn't deserve, and possibly didn't even want.

Outside of Miguel Cabrera evoking his star status and a brief question of the call from old(est) school manager Jim Leyland, the stun sat for about a minute after the call as only the disapproving fans voiced displeasure.

That all changed pretty quickly.

With instant replay the swift judge and jury of all things sports - and convenience store robberies - and the clubhouse just steps from the dugout, Galaragga's teammates quickly had confirmation of what they already suspected. Soon, a distraught Jim Joyce would too.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the shit out of it,” Joyce said, his own worst expletive-filled critic after the game. “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

But most remarkable was Galaragga's reaction. From reaction to shock to an accepting smile.

He knew what others would know seconds later and he didn't have a word to say about it. Joyce was the one with all the words after the game, more disparaging of himself than Galarraga could ever be.

A composed Galarraga after the game said simply, "Nobody's perfect."

Perfectly put.

Joyce apologized to Galaragga and the two embraced, though it was the burly, mustached umpire that likely needed it more.

Alexander Pope, one of the greatest poets who ever lived, once offered "To err is human; to forgive is divine."

Though many of us will never know perfection in a baseball sense or otherwise, divinity isn't a bad consolation prize.

And nobody can take that away from him.

____________________

So, those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think.

Here are a few more snippets from other (much more talented and rightfully higher-paid and more esteemed) sports writers. Click on the writer's name to read the full article.


"Galarraga pitched a perfect game on Wednesday night in Detroit. I’ll always believe that. I think most baseball fans will always believe that. But, more than anything it seems that Galarraga will always believe it. The way he handled himself after the game, well, that was something better than perfection. Dallas Braden’s perfect game was thrilling. Roy Halladay’s perfect game was art. But Armando’s Galarraga’s perfect game was a lesson in grace.

And when my young daughters ask, “Why didn’t he get mad and scream about how he was robbed,” I think I will tell them this: I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because Armando Galarraga understands something that is very hard to understand, something we all struggle with, something I hope you learn as you grow older: In the end, nobody’s perfect. We just do the best we can." -- Joe Posnanski


"And history is forever altered. One step changed the headlines from `Perfect game!' to `Imperfect ump!,' just like that the pendulum swinging from joyous to angry, one symbolic step the difference between the perfection humans aren't meant to achieve and the imperfection we've perfected." -- Dan Le Batard


"It's too bad for a lot of people, in a lot of ways. It was the most-imperfect ending to the most-perfect game ever thrown by a Tiger, and on a memorable night indeed, there was no other way to explain it." -- Bob Wojnowski


"Expanded instant replay in baseball always was a matter of when and not if. It was going to take a generation of people who grew up comfortable with technology moving into decision-making positions in major league baseball. Jim Joyce just put that timetable on fast forward." -- Tom Verducci