Reflection by Fr. Chris

The other day I was watching ESPN and came across an episode of E:60 titled “Nearly Perfect.” The episode looked at a baseball game which took place on June 2, 2010 between the Clevland Indians and Detroit Tigers. There was nothing significant about these teams; neither won the World Series that year, and neither was historically bad. This was supposed to be “just another baseball game.” However, what made this game significant was that the Tiger’s starting pitcher, Armando Galarraga, was pitching the game of his life: 26 batters up, 26 batters down, one out away from a perfect game, when a routine groundball to second led to the Indian’s shortstop landing safe at first, and the perfect game ending. One problem, while umpire Jim Joyce called the player safe, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, saw he was out. I remember watching this game in college and thinking to myself, “how can you be so foolish? Are you blind? Anyone can see he was out, you ruined everything!”

Watching the documentary, and listening to the interviews, I can say with confidence, he was out! And it doesn’t matter! Sure, it would have been nice for Galarraga to get the recognition of throwing a perfect game. I would ask you though, who threw the last perfect game in the major leagues? Most (if not all) cannot answer that question. Something more significant took place in the aftermath of that game.

The umpire received death threats from fans after the blown call. I, of course, do not like that reality, but sadly I am not surprised. What surprised me though was when Joyce said that one of the threats was written on the back of a church bulletin. That is alarming, and we can get into a long discussion on how much someone must ignore the Gospel to do such a thing. But, instead, I think there is a more basic lesson that we can all learn from this situation. We all make mistakes.

 What Joyce did was not sinful (yes, even if the call was against the Red Sox, it was not sinful). However, he was sure when he made the call that it was the right call, only to find out later he was wrong. We have all been there, we’ve done things we wanted to do because we were sure we were right, only to discover later we were wrong. The good news is that’s not the end of the story.

In the case of Joyce, Galarraga knowing how bad Joyce felt about the missed call, went out of his way to let the fans know he held no animosity towards the umpire. Galarraga is a pitcher. I, of course, do not know him, but this spoke to the content of his character. Knowing someone was facing “the heat,” he stepped in, to show the fans that he shouldn’t be hated. 
Now I ask you, if a pitcher who most of us have never heard of, can forgive an umpire who most of us have never heard of, how much greater is the forgiveness offered to us by our Heavenly Father, who knew us before we were born. God does not want us to hate or be hated. When we make a mistake, we need to own up to it. The world (like many foolish fans) will tell us that we can never be forgiven, but God never tells us that. If we come to God with a sincere contrite heart, we will receive His mercy. Let us always remember that.
If you desire God’s mercy for a sin that you’ve committed, confessions are as follows…

Wednesday at 4:30 at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels 
Saturday at 3:30 at St. John the Evangelist 
Saturday at 3:00 at St Bonaventure

This documentary tells the story of a June 2, 2010 game that seemed to have little significance between the Detroit Tigers and the then Cleveland Indians. As has been the case in some of baseball’s most historic moments, the player at the center of it, was not some large star, but rather someone in the rotation working his way into something more. Go look up Don Larsen; a pedestrian pitcher that has the distinction of hurling the only perfect game in World Series history.

What makes the Galarraga near-perfect game so intriguing is that it hinges on what should have been the last out of the game – number 27 – when first base umpire Jim Joyce missed the call on a ground ball play by Jason Donald calling him safe instead of out that would have resulted in Major League Baseball’s 21st perfect game. At the time, there was no instant replay for calls on the base paths. The Galarraga game quickened that into happening.
 
In Christ,
Fr. Chris