Tom Verducci & Matt Lauer on Armando Galarraga / Jim Joyce episode

Really compelling theater from MLB in the last few days that goes beyond sports to being what President Barack Obama might refer to as "a teachable moment."

Starting things off, umpire Jim Joyce got wrong the call that would have completed for Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga the 20th Perfect Game in MLB history. From this came a series of interesting events.

To whit... Galarraga maintains his cool and completes the game; Joyce see the video and realizes his error; Joyce tearfully apologizes to Galarraga; the pitcher accepts his apology and gives him a hug; Joyce speaks to the media and acknowledges his mistake; Galarraga takes the lineup card to home plate for the next day's game and shakes hands with Joyce (who could have taken the day off, but didn't).

In terms of after the fact analysis, I really liked and agree with Tom Verducci from his CNNSI piece "Selig should review Joyce's blown call for the future, not the past" as well as Matt Lauer in his Today Show interview with Joyce.

It was a remarkable sporting event made more remarkable in that out of it, two people acted respectively as forthright and understanding adults. Sports are great, but something like this is just plain cool beyond a mere sporting event.

Sports Illustrated Stories - Dallas Braden Perfect Game & Genes Impacting Sports

Two different pieces from the May 17 issue of Sports Illustrated that stood out to me... neither for what I thought was necessarily great writing, but both with very interesting content.

The cover story was "Happy Mother's Day" about the 19th Perfect Game in Major League history... thrown by Dallas Braden.  Written by Tom Verducci, the story chronicles the trials and tribulations that Braden has been through and how they led up to his masterpiece performance.  Such a great narrative around the performance with it being on Mother's Day / Breast Cancer Awareness Day and in front of his grandmother who raised him after his single mom passed away from cancer.

Below is the clip from Comcast Sports Net Bay Area:



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From the same May 17 issue was "Sports Genes" by David Epstein about how genetic markers can and do influence athletic performance.  What was terribly interesting about this piece to me wasn't so much from the perspective of what's known now about genes and their impact on sports, but what the future holds.  With performance enhancing drugs or the possibility of their use being so prevalent in many sports, gene therapy takes the idea of artificial enhancement to a new level. 

MLB Perfect Game Article from Sports Illustrated

Really cool piece titled "Miracle On The South Side" from the the latest Sports Illustrated on Mark Buehrle's perfect game.

Written by Lee Jenkins, it chronicles the events around the White Sox pitcher throwing on July 30th only the 18th perfect game in major league history. Compared to this, mere no-hitters are practically a commonplace event with there having been 263 in the major leagues.

Just a really well written story about an amazing event. Also makes me feel bad for Jonathan Sanchez of the Giants (who lost his July 10 perfect game to an 8th inning Juan Uribe error) and all other "close but not close enough" pitchers detailed in this sidebar piece.

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Additionally of interest from this SI issue was this Kenny Moore written piece about the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Very short and very solid writing from a guy that I wrote about in this blog post.