ESPN's E60 documentary forces Tigers fans to relive Armando Galarraga nightmare

On June 2, 2010, Tigers fans held their breath as Armando Galarraga reached the top of the ninth in a start against the then-Cleveland Indians. He'd been perfect through eight frames. He was just three outs away from the Tigers' first perfect game in franchise history.

He got Mark Grudzielanek to fly out to deep center field, then Mike Redmond grounded out. One out away. Then Jason Donald came to the plate. Galarraga got him into a 1-1 count then threw a pitch to the outside part of the plate. Donald stuck his bat out and poked it between first and second base. Miguel Cabrera rushed to field it and then threw to Galarraga covering first. His foot hit the bag, then Donald's foot hit the bag — and you know the rest.

Galarraga's incredulous, disbelieving smile at first base umpire Jim Joyce has become a long-standing baseball meme, and it sort of says it all. Back then, managers couldn't call for review, and Galarraga was forced to live with the stunning reality that his perfect game would be taken away because of a clearly incorrect call.

Fourteen years later, ESPN is forcing us to relive it — and revisit all of the discourse, with a new E60 special dedicated to the almost perfect game.

New ESPN documentary on Armando Galarraga's almost perfect game revives the discourse 14 years later

Joyce reportedly felt so bad after the game that he approached Galarraga in tears to apologize for missing the call. It's exceedingly rare that umpires apologize for anything, so it was a kind gesture from Joyce, but it did little to pacify Tigers fans who were so close to watching one of their pitchers make history. Galarraga was an improbable candidate for it as well; he had pitched two prior starts in May but was demoted to the bullpen for a short stint in his last appearance that month. The Tigers eventually demoted him the month after his stellar performance.

In the trailer for the new documentary, former Detroit and Cleveland players alike weigh in on whether or not the call should be overturned after a decade. Jim Leyland makes an appearance to echo a common sentiment — if you overturn one call from before the replay review expansion, you open a can of worms.

It doesn't look like it'll ever go Galarraga's way, and we'll always have to live with the pain of how he was cheated out of a historical feat. Thanks for rubbing that in, ESPN. But at least this documentary provides further justice by informing the baseball audience of the incorrect call in a more in-depth manner.