Thursday, June 03, 2010
A Reason To Admire Jim Joyce
I suppose Jim Joyce is a bit of an off-beat topic to break my blogging drought with. (And to end a sentence with “with”. Oh my.)
You may have heard. Jim Joyce made an error in judgement. It was a mistake. A major league screw up. Literally.
He’s an umpire, and he made a bad call.
He’s not the first. He’s not the last ump who will make a bad call. They are only human.
He’s not the first ump who made a bad call that had a significant impact. Arguably, bad calls have cost games and and even titles throughout history
Jim’s bad call did not cost the Tigers the win. It didn’t deprives them of a league championship.
It simply altered how the win would go into the record books. But what an alteration. It was a historic record. Something that, arguably, goes beyond a win/loss, or even some title. It was a history making record that legends are made of. And that’s were the disbelief and anger comes from. His mistake didn’t cost a team a win, or a pitcher a record. His mistake cost all baseball fans one of those stories told and retold for generations. It robbed the community of an enduring feel great moment. It stole a dream come true moment. Worse, this dream-inspiring legend was stolen in Detroit. A community that desperately needs hopes and dreams and legends to encourage it as the city and state seems to be crumbling around them.
That has magnified the reaction.
But what about Jim Joyce. Here’s a guy who grew up in Toledo. You’ve got to think he’s a life long Toledo Mud Hens fan and a Detroit Tigers fan. Prior to his mistake, he was considered one of the best umpires in MLB by some. He’s got a dream job, umpiring for a team he loves. And he caused their pain. He doesn’t screw up often, but when he did, it couldn’t have been much worse professionally. Now he has made the record books, and not in a good way.
A lot of people are angry with him. Scary angry. I’ve seen professing church-goers encouraging his death in the most horrible and painful of manners. Now there’s a great witness. I have to say, some of the Tiger’s fans really are a poor testament to God, Michigan, Detroit, the Tigers, and themselves.
But you know who has been admirable? Armando Galarraga, the pitcher whose perfect game will live forever in our memory, even if not in its proper place in the record book. Ironically, it will probably be remembered even longer and be an even bigger story as time goes on than if it had been recorded as a perfect game. The imperfect call has made the achievement infamous.
And Jim Joyce has been admirable. The guy went in, watched the replay, and saw he was wrong. He then acted like a quality person, a real man. It was too late to undo his error. He didn’t walk away though. He initiated a meeting with Galarraga. He owned up to his mistake to the whole world. He did everything in his power to take responsibility. Then he faced the consequences and walked back out on the field the next game to a crowd that isn’t too happy with him, and a team that isn’t too thrilled by him.
His reputation is in tatters. Even more, you can see in his interviews that he is being as hard on himself as any fan.
His mistake, although not intentional, caused an injustice. A minor injustice when seen through the world’s long history of injustices. But it was a mistake that hurt people.
Me, I can’t throw a stone. I also have made mistakes. Some big. You have too. None of us want to be defined by our mistakes, and each of us fears that our mistakes will end life as we know it.
In those moments, that’s when we have a desperate need for grace. Mercy. Forgiveness. Hope. And restoration.
It’s cool to see many Tigers fans are coming together with support for Joyce. It’s a whole lot easier to do it when he broke with our culture’s tradition of initially denying failings, then holding a press conference of tears (under pressure), then disappearing into rehab for some underlying cause. It is easier because, from the beginning, Joyce stood up, was genuine, faced his error and took it like a man.
The rest of us men can learn something from him.
As an aside, it’s time to deal with the real source of the injustice. A rule book that doesn’t allow a reasonable remedy for injustice. In a day when technology provides instant replays, a simple check before finalizing the call would have prevented this. Plus a process to fix rare errors like this could be in place.