MLB Must Do Right by Armando Galarraga and Acknowledge His Perfect Game

Armando Galarraga is stuck in the past, perhaps in an alternate universe, where his greatest singular athletic accomplishment wasn't stripped from him by the powers that be.

The aftermath of umpire Jim Joyce's historically awful call at first base on that fateful 2010 day has been -- for the most part -- great for baseball. Joyce and Galarraga employed tremendous sportsmanship just days later after the umpire received threats from MLB fans across the country. Such a flaw in umpire intuition is also viewed as one of the stepping stones to instant replay, which we've grown accustomed to today.

Knowing what we do now, though, Rob Manfred must do the right thing, and acknowledge Galarraga's June 2, 2010 performance against the Cleveland Indians for what it was: perfect.

“I was like, what can I do to have a better finish to the story?” Galarraga recently told The Athletic on his own behalf. “How can Major League Baseball give me the perfect game? Because it was perfect, right?”

Galarraga's career 4.76 ERA and mediocre statistical resume could use such a boost, while Joyce would prefer that error be eliminated from his legacy as an umpire, officially at the very least.

The argument against revisionist history is simple: it opens up an entire can of worms. What else can be altered in sports with the benefit of instant replay? Will we send the New Orleans Saints to Super Bowl LIII rather than the Los Angeles Rams?

The easy answer to that predicament is that Tigers-Indians was a regular season game, and eliminating one "hit" doesn't change the end result, which was an easy victory for the squad from MoTown, and the literal final out of the game. No need to predict the in-game "ripples" that might've followed. This was the very end. We're not unraveling the 1985 World Series here.

To Joyce's credit, he's long been on the side of Galarraga in his quest to overturn the call. To this point, MLB has routinely denied that suggestion.

That ought to change immediately.