UPDATE: Jim Joyce is behind the plate for today’s Tigers/Indians game, and he came out with the waterworks flowing. Armando Galarraga presented the Tigers’ lineup card to Joyce, who then really turned on the tears. You almost feel bad for him until you watch the video below, which has been updated with a working copy.

Armando “Not So Big Cat” Galarraga flirted with history last night, as he was vying for the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history, the unprecedented third perfect game of this early season, and the first in Detroit Tigers history. But with two outs, Cleveland Indians shortstop Jason Donald hit a weak grounder to second that was cut off by Miguel Cabrera, whose throw to Galarraga covering first appeared to be in time. But veteran umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe, and for the first time ever, the city of Detroit knew the meaning of sad.

Joyce’s insanely stupid bonehead call not only cost Galarraga his perfect game, but a no-hitter as well, leaving the 28-year old Venezuelan with a stinky old complete game shutout. Joyce was booed by Detroit fans throughout the final at-bat for Cleveland, and Detroit manager Jim Leyland put down his pack of Camel Wides long enough to give Joyce an earful, before the 23-year umpire was escorted off the field. After the game, Joyce watched the replay and made a humble admission of guilt for his blind-as-a-bat idiotic doodie-for-brains call.

Spurn your own, MLB.com:

Joyce blew a call, the most important of his life, and he knew it.

“It was the biggest call of my career and I kicked the [stuff] out of it,” he said. “I just cost that kid a perfect game after he pitched his [butt] off all night.”

“I had a great angle, and I missed the call,” he said. “I really thought he beat the ball. At that time, I thought he beat the ball. After I heard from the Tigers, who had obviously seen a replay, I asked the guy in the room to cue up the play as soon as we got in here, and I missed it from here to that wall.”

Galarraga, all things considered, handled the amazingly mind-blowingly batsh*t call with maturity and decency, as he offered only a smile after he realized that Donald was called safe. After the game, and after hearing Joyce’s admission, Galarraga commented: “He apologized. He feels really bad. Nobody is perfect.” See what he did there?

Despite his turd-a-riffic Corky-esque call of epic lunacy, Joyce is widely considered one of the best umpires in baseball. Upon hearing of this debacle, umpire Joe West called a press conference and took credit for the BP oil spill.

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Major League Baseball decided not to expand the use of instant replay for 2010, despite consideration stemming from a cluster of blown calls by umpires in the playoffs and late regular season in 2009. General managers didn’t even vote on it, in large part due to commissioner Bud Selig’s adamant opposition to it.

Any change for 2010 likely would be likely have to be instigated by commissioner Bud Selig, who repeatedly has said he’s against widening the use of video review. While there was discussion, Solomon said “it was all confined to the current instant replay system that we have.”

“I think commissioner Selig is going to look at the entire umpiring structure and he’s going to seek ways to enhance the entire structure,” Solomon said. –Y! Sports.

Baseball with instant replay is like my grandparents with email: you’ll have to push them into it kicking and screaming. Hang on, here comes an email from Grandpa right now…”Call me when you get this.” Way to join the information age, you old coot.

Wow, another high school sports story from Iowa. Hey, how come we never see any pro sports stories out of…oh, right. From the Houston Chronicle:

An umpire emptied the stands at a high school baseball game, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly…He said he had to take action because fans were being unruly, yelling and arguing.

However, West Burlington Superintendent James Sleister said he didn’t see any unusual behavior and said he thought the umpire overreacted.

Sorry, I gotta take the umpire’s word over someone that works in education. You don’t see this happening in Japan, do you? And they play baseball all the time. They all draw cartoons of oceanic wildlife raping female schoolchildren, but that’s splitting hairs.

Yankees relief pitcher Brian Bruney went on the DL six days after throwing in the bullpen during a lengthy delay to review a home run call. Bruney said the eight-and-a-half minute delay led to his overthrowing in the bullpen and a strained flexor muscle in his throwing arm.

“I don’t know what the 8 1/2 minutes was all about,” he said. “I don’t know if like somebody was on lunch break or what.” [...]

“I could have quit throwing, I could have waited and started again,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s coming out in 30 seconds or 3 minutes or 8 1/2 minutes. It turned out to be the latter. I mean, that’s a long time for a reliever to be throwing or any pitcher to be throwing.”

That’s a long time to be doing anything. Hey, either the ball went over the damn wall or it didn’t. And why do they all have to go in the tunnel? Send one guy. What, do they have a breakfast bar back there? Send the one guy into the tunnel and he can bring out coffee and sausage biscuits for everyone else. Mmm, biscuits.

|SI.com|

Hoping to avoid an embarrassing Tim Donaghy situation, Major League Baseball has been conducting thorough background checks of its umpires, hoping to ferret out any sort of deviant behavior that might prove damaging to the sport, like, say, gambling, hiring undocumented nannies, illegally downloading Interpol albums, or, you know, being a member of the KKK.

Umpires are livid that Major League Baseball has sent investigators to their hometowns, asking neighbors a series of questions that include whether the ump belongs to the Ku Klux Klan.

"We did not anticipate that they would approach neighbors posing as a close colleague and friend of the umpire's and asking them questions such as: Do you know if umpire `X' is a member of the Ku Klux Klan? Does he grow marijuana plants? Does he beat his wife? Have you seen the police at his home? Does he throw wild parties?" union spokesman Lamell McMorris said by telephone from India.

Fuck yes he is. And I'm pretty sure Umpire X throws a bitchin' party. He was born Umpire Robertoalomar, but in prison he read about the unspeakable terrors inflicted by minority ball players on his people and decided to rid his name of the mark of the oppressor. -Christmas Ape