NEW YORK (AP) — An umpire's tears and admission he botched a call failed to move Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig to award Armando Galarraga the perfect game he pitched.
The play and its aftermath quickly became the talk of American sports and beyond, even to the White House.
Selig said on Thursday that MLB will look at expanded video replay and umpiring, but didn't specifically address umpire Jim Joyce's bad call on Wednesday that cost Galarraga the first perfect game in Detroit Tigers history.
A MLB official familiar with the decision confirmed to The Associated Press that the call was not being reversed. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because that element was not included in Selig's statement.
Joyce said he erred on what would've been the final out in Detroit, when he called Cleveland's Jason Donald safe at first base. The umpire personally apologized to Galarraga and hugged him after the Tigers' 3-0 win, then took the field at Comerica Park on Thursday in tears.
Tigers manager Jim Leyland picked Galarraga to present Detroit's lineup at home plate before Thursday's game to set up the emotional meeting with Joyce. They shook hands, and the umpire gave the pitcher a pat on the shoulder.
"I didn't want this to be my 15 minutes of fame. I would have liked my 15 minutes to be a great call in the World Series. Hopefully, my 15 minutes are over now," Joyce said.
Bad calls are part of the mix in sports, but the chance to right a wrong and the heartfelt emotions of everyone involved reached way past the diamond.
"I've got to say we'll never see it again in our lifetime," New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
Galarraga, who was barely known outside Detroit before this week, and Joyce, whose career had flourished in relative obscurity, became hot topics on Twitter. At least one anti-Joyce Facebook page popped up and firejimjoyce.com was launched. Wikipedia blocked editing to the umpire's page.
Joyce, a longtime umpire with a solid reputation, declined comment on MLB's statement after Thursday's game, saying he hadn't read it.
"There's no doubt he feels bad and terrible," Galarraga said after Detroit beat Cleveland 12-6 on Thursday. "I have a lot of respect for the man. It takes a lot to say you're sorry and to say in interviews he made a mistake."
"I'm sad, but I know that I pitched a perfect game. The first 28-out perfect game," he said.
Denied the 21st perfect game in history, the record third this season, Galarraga still got a prize. The Tigers and Chevrolet presented him with a new Corvette.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "I hope that baseball awards a perfect game to that pitcher." Told that MLB was not going to reverse it, he joked, "We're going to work on an executive order."
Gibbs praised the way Galarraga and Joyce reacted to a play that will define their careers.
"I think it's tremendously heartening to see somebody understand that they made a mistake and somebody accept the apology from somebody who made that mistake," he said. "I think that's a good lesson in baseball. It's probably a good lesson in Washington."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
