Detroit Tigers Opening Day Countdown: 1 Day

Previously:
15 Days: Number of Ryan Raburn Home Runs in 2010
14 Days: Number of Cards in 2003 Topps Base Set
13 Days: Number of Starts by Jacob Turnerfor Lakeland in 2010
12 Days: Number of Franchise Playoff Appearances
11 Days: Number of Tigers Rookie Debuts in 2010
10 Days: Number American League Pennants Won
9 Days: Number Consecutive Years With Only One All-Star
8 Days: All-time Rank in Interleague Play Win Percentage
7 Days: Number of Victories until Jim Leyland Reaches Career Win Number 1500
6 Days: Attendance Rank in 2010
5 Days: Number of Major League Starts Made By Andy Oliver in 2010
4 Days: Number of Consecutive Opening Day Starts by Justin Verlander
3 Days: Number of Division Titles in Team History
2 Days: The Number of Tigers Family Members We Lost in 2010

The Tigers open the season tomorrow in New York against the Yankees, but with one day remaining, we look back at the one game, the one moment, the one imperfect call from last season that will be frozen in time forever.

I’m not a fan of Armando Galarraga’s baseball playing abilities in general, but for one night in June he retired every batter that came to the plate against him. All 28.

We had a brief moment of ecstasy after we all saw Galarraga beat Jason Donald to the bag, but our hearts and guts were ripped out when we saw Jim Joyce signal him safe.

Here’s some clips of the play with Jim Joyce’s reaction to his mistake.

Everyone was mad, and furious, and upset, and angry, and every other word that means the same thing because you can’t think of anything else because you’re so pissed off. Everyone except Armando Galarraga. Now, I’m sure he wasn’t happy about the situation, but he didn’t yell and scream and carry on. He handled the situation with grace and class and reminded us that in the end, it is just a game.

We were reminded that everyone makes mistakes, we can’t change that, but we can change our reaction to them. The best people are the ones that can admit that their wrong and the ones that can forgive when they’ve been wronged.

I do think that the baseball folks need to have more discussions on the expansion of the replay system. I’m in favor of using it whenever possible in order to get the calls right. But I’m not in favor of slowing the game down much to accomplish it. I mean, we all knew within 20 or 30 seconds that the call was wrong. I don’t see why there isn’t a way to implement a system that could overturn the obvious mistakes that take no time to review. I’m sure Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga both wish they had that chance last June.