Tag Archives: toughest job in baseball

I wrote a post last June entitled “Umpire ~ Toughest Job in Baseball“.   It was about the call Jim Joyce made on an Armando Galarraga throw to first that cost the pitcher the “perfect game”.   So when I read Craig Calcaterra’s headlines today I thought of the many games Joyce has called in the past year where Galarraga  has played and the games went without a hitch ~ smooth as silk. 

Today is the first anniversary of that infamous call and I have to say this made for a great headline!   It seems that the umpire and pitcher have entered a business venture and co-authored a book together.    The name of the book is “Nobody’s Perfect” . It was published last month and is available on Amazon

Some of the comments on Calcaterra’s blog this morning were pretty entertaining.   One mentioned an extreme dislike for a few of MLB’s umpires and suggested letting  every owner and GM in the game co-author a book and have their least favorite umpires write a chapter on the nuances of umpiring, country music, dieting, whatever, thereby eliminating them from umpiring “any” game.   After watching two really, really bad calls last night during the Cardinals-Giants game I understand what they’re saying.  Probably not a really good idea, but I get it.   Unfortunately the calls were made by two different umps so the blogger’s rationale isn’t very sound.  Eventually there wouldn’t be anyone left to call the games! 

Hmm…. you just know a movie about the two is in the works.   Wonder who’ll play Armando?   Better yet!  Who in the world could possibly play Jim Joyce?   I can see it now;  “And the award for best actor goes to ……… Jim Joyce for playing  ………. “Jim Joyce”! 

All in fun.  It’s great to see a friendly and working relationship between these two special men, and I hope the entire baseball community will embrace this as well.