To all of the columnists, commentators, bloggers, players, coaches, and fans who are undoubtedly calling for an overhaul of replay rules in major league baseball following Tuesday’s blown call at the plate by home plate umpire Jerry Meals, a call that could easily end up costing the Pittsburgh Pirates a chance at the postseason:
Stop.
Gather your bats and your balls and your gloves and go home. We don’t want to play with you anyway.
To the rest of you, those who can smell the past in the cut spring grass, those who spent their childhood organizing baseball cards by flashlight long after bedtime, those for whom learning to catch and throw and swing was as much a part of growing up as learning to speak honestly or love unselfishly:
Let’s play ball.
Let’s play ball because that’s what baseball is about: persistence in the face of disappointment. And failure. And imperfection.
Yes, baseball is about imperfection. Great hitters only succeed thirty to forty percent of the time. Great pitchers win just over half of their games. Great catchers throw out a baserunner less than half of the time. Great teams win the division by being, often, just a fraction of a percent better than the team that loses.
Those of us who get it, who see beyond the moaning and the impertinence and the childish complaining, understand that the best part of a sport is not perfection, or near-perfection, or even winning at all; it is its ability to reflect the best parts of us.
Think Jackie Robinson in 1947, reflecting the best of America in the face of its most inhumane policies and prejudices. Think Lou Gehrig in 1939 and Jim Valvano in 1993, reflecting the strength of the human spirit in the face of the overwhelming weight of mortality. Think Jesse Owens in 1936, Kirk Gibson in 1988, Ben Hogan in 1950, Kerri Strug in 1996. Think of Cal Ripken’s 17-year streak, the quintessence of the American work ethic.
Then, think of June 3, 2010, when Armando Galarraga delivered the lineup card to umpire Jim Joyce, who the night before had cost him a perfect game on the very last out in the very last inning, in one of the most touching acts of sportsmanship ever displayed in a stadium.
Should we really argue that there is no beauty in the “human element?”
Umpires, like players and coaches, and like every other human being on the planet, will make mistakes. It is our response to those mistakes that reveals our character. Of course we could change the rules in order to produce a more desirable outcome. With the technology currently available, we could eliminate umpires and use computers to call balls and strikes, fair and foul, and so on. While we’re at it, we could start making baseballs out of synthetic rubber to facilitate more home runs. Then we could speed things up by reducing the game to seven innings, and for the coup de grâce, eliminate the shortstop to increase batting averages. The more I think about it, maybe we should get rid of the players altogether and have teams of highly-skilled robots demonstrate for all of us how the game should be played. Or better yet, let’s just devise a computer program that calculates the probable winner automatically, eliminating the need for a game at all.
Like it or not, if there is an expansion of replay in major league baseball, or if the “human element” of umpire shortcomings is eliminated by head office reversals, we will be losing a big part of ourselves. We will be closing the door on our history, brushing into oblivion the decades of records and pennants and seasons that, somehow, were able to transpire without replay. We will be closing the door on our fathers and our grandfathers, on playing catch in the backyard, on our very history as a nation. We will be closing the door on our ability to hold firmly to our convictions and to adjust ourselves in the face of adversity rather than run from it.
In the end, what I know is this: there is beauty in imperfection. Failure can be touching. Disappointment inspires perseverance, and perseverance is the most basic, and perhaps most important, human quality. If we lose the so-called “human element,” we lose the whole point of baseball, of being American, of being human. Some day we will all be gone, buried in the ground and forgotten. When that time comes, it should not be our bitterness and disappointments that resonate in the moral fiber of our children and our grandchildren, nor should it be our power to change rules in order to suit our needs. Instead, it should be our ability to accept disappointment with strength and dignity, and to face tomorrow despite it. This is what baseball can teach us about humanity. This is what is sacred.
Today, the Sun still rose. The Pittsburgh Pirates stretched their legs and held batting practice. Tonight, Jerry Meals will come to the park, put on his uniform, stand before thousands of fellow human beings who have witnessed his failure, and do his job.
