What I Hope to Convince Selig

The following are thoughts I put in a letter to Lynn Henning (as an aside to a different discussion entirely). It's the best organization of my case for Selig to reverse last night's call and award the perfect game to Armando. Enjoy (or fisk -- whichever you prefer):

Thank you, Lynn, for responding.

I would like to get back into this tomorrow or over the weekend but today I have my sights set on convincing Bud Selig that justice is best served by reversing last night's call and rewarding Armando the perfect game.

...That the best thing for baseball would be for Joyce to walk out to the plate of Comerica Park this afternoon with a clear conscience because his league had his back, and wouldn't let one very badly timed mistake haunt his entire career.

...That the best thing for baseball would be to recognize what occurred on the field as the ultimate arbiter of its history.

...That the best thing for baseball would be to not deprive itself of an important moment by magnifying a small and acknowledged flaw in the game beyond the minutae it has always been treated as.

...That the best thing for baseball would be to stand behind the words of its official when he admits he made a mistake.

...That any precedent for overturning calls set by this action would not provide a "slippery slope" so much as set an exemplary (and almost impossibly high) standard for when and how an on-field call may be overturned. (e.g. response to Yankees fans arguing balls and strikes = "was it a blatantly obvious mistake that the opposing team will not contend and the umpire who made the call then apologized for and said it was the worst call of his career, and did it overturn a once-per-decade event?")

...That rewarding Armando Galarraga a perfect game is not only the right thing to do, but the right thing to do, business-wise, justice-wise for the game of baseball.