Freedom of the press is a guaranteed constitutional right. When the constitution was written, however, there was no radio, TV, or internet. None of the founders could have ever imagined how enslaving this freedom would become to us all. The constant bombardment with information, all too often portrayed as actual “news” has turned us into 24/7/365 consumers of too much of the most awful hogwash (garbage fed to hogs). What we have done is immunized ourselves from the really important events that are news. Like the one I want to blog about today.
This past week, I believe, there really was one non-news event that is newsworthy. This event is newsworthy (and note worthy) because it teaches us two very important lessons: how to behave in the face of adversity and what is really important.
Last week Armando Galarraga, pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was one pitch away from a perfect game. A perfect game is defined as 27 batters up and down, without a hit, an error, or a walk. (That means no batter gets on base.) He threw his last pitch. The batter swung. He hit the ball, and he began to run to first base. The ball was retrieved and thrown to the first baseman. The batter was called safe. But in actuality he wasn’t. The umpire, a veteran of almost 25 years, made a mistake.
The instant replay showed that the batter was indeed out. By a lot. Jim Joyce, the ref who made the bad call, apologized to Galarraga that night. He hugged him on the mound. He had cost him the perfect game. He was terribly sorry.
It’s only a game, you might protest. But it is not a game to these professionals. It is their lives. And this pitcher would have gone down in history with a handful of others who did the nearly undoable. To put this feat into perspective, no one pitcher has ever pitched two perfect games, and more men have orbited the moon than pitched a perfect game.
The mistake is played over and over again. The Commissioner of the Major League will not over turn the call. But these are not the real stories. This is not the real news.
The real story is not the mistake but what happened after he and Galarraga realized a mistake had been made. When the umpire saw the film he was mortified to tears. He apologized. He didn’t have to. That made the news, as it should.
But what was even more important was how the wronged pitcher behaved. His re-action (and not the instant re-play) should be mandatory watching for every little league parent. No child should play ball until he/she and his/her parent watches the clip of the pitcher. That’s what should go down in history.
What did he do? He was gracious and accepted the umpire’s erroneous call. Those were the rules and he abided by them. Even when he had good reason to feel cheated, because he was cheated of a moment of glory. The ref made a mistake. We all make mistakes.
Life is not always fair, and not even an instant replay (which I take it in baseball is not good enough to overturn the referee’s call) can make it fair. Sometimes mistakes are avoidable, and sometimes they are not. The lesson here to be learned is that the most gracious truly does win, even if it is not the prize he/she may have been after. Galarraga is a hero. Even if he didn’t pitch the perfect game, he is a perfect pitcher.
I had one friend during the many years of battles that I fought who would frequently remind me when I ranted or planned my revenge, “The most gracious always wins.” Now I am not sure that this is always true, but I think it is a good reminder when faced with adversity. Over time I internalized this mantra to help me keep my cool. It wasn’t easy, but it got easier over time. Now I am pretty good at it and along with my other mantra (“Just keep smiling”), I think I do pretty well.
And so when I was, and still am, faced with particularly nasty behavior from certain people, I try to muster up as much “graciousness” as possible. You can (and must) fight as hard as you need to, when you need to, but grace under fire will allow you to be a victor even when you have not “won” the game.
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