Heroes in Action!

For a number of years we were a little short of heroes in the sports field. We found for the most part that too many of them had feet of clay. Not in just one sport but in a many, pro basketball, pro football, pro golf, and pro baseball. It's almost epidemic. In collegiate sports we found many of the coaches with questionable ethics and sordid personal lives and underhanded tactics for having winning teams. Hard for the youth of today to do any hero worshiping or find a figure to look up to. Do they have baseball cards today? I'm serious, I really do not know. If they do, do they list how many performance inhancing drugs that the 'hero' player took? Do they list the amount of denials, even under oath, that the 'hero' made? Do they list how many sleazy affairs the 'hero' has had? It staggers the immagination to think of it.

So, it is so refreshing and breath taking to see the heroic tableau played out on the baseball field the other night. Two men that will go down in my book as heroes. An umpire, named Jim Joyce, that broke into tears when he saw the replay of the play that he called that cost the pitcher, Armando Galarraga to miss getting credit for pitching a perfect game. We depend on the umpire's eyes, he was just two or three feet from the base, to call the plays. But modern day technology with cameras rolling and instant re-plays being available, he was proven wrong.

There by bringing tough love into play. The ump is always right even when he's wrong! We heard it, he called it and we have to abide by it. I know everyone of us have attended games or watched them on television when we know full well that the ref or ump is dead wrong, we have to bite the bullet and let it go. In this case the wrong decision denied a young pitcher his fifteen minutes of fame! The call, if called right, would have been the final out in a perfect game. "We was robbed!"

The young pitcher and the umpire embraced and the ump appoligized and cried over his egregious error. Galarraga consoled him and smiled while his team mates showed their outrage. Bud Selig the baseball commissioner remained steadfast in his decision that the call stands. He cited untold problems that would spring to the front if he were to reverse the ump's call.

Jim Joyce, openly admitted that he 'blew it' and did not appoloigize for his tears. He explained that he is Irish and shows his emotions and he wept over his error. That's the courage that we all want from our heroes, how can we not forgive him and love his valor?

Armando Galarraga was so gratious and forgiving and went to the ump and embraced him to reassure him that he could live with the error. He smiled but brushed off praise for that by saying he frequently smiles when he is emotional. What a pair!!

Both participants in that tableu will long be remembered in baseball. I hope every dad or mom points to those heroes as examples for their young sons and daughters. Galarraga said he is sad but he knows he pitched a perfect game. The first 28 out perfect game. He lauded Jim Joyce for saying he was sorry and admitting he made a mistake. He voiced his respect for Joyce. I'm voicing my respect for both of these men.

Galarraga was presented with a new Corvette to help him ease some of the pain.

Tigers -3 Cleveland -0 Ciao.