There’s a great story in the Detroit Free Press today going behind the scenes with umpire Jim Joyce. We get a little of his background and a lot of what happened in the couple of days after the infamous blown call.
I think the best part is his mother. She was totally oblivious to the bad call when Joyce showed up at her house after the game that night — she lives in Toledo and he stays with her when he does Tigers games — and told him it wasn’t a big deal. The next night he took her out to dinner and totally ignored Joyce’s request that she not tell anyone what he does for a living because of all of the hubub floating around.
I don’t know if Joyce’s mom just wasn’t aware of what was happening or simply didn’t care, but moms are pretty good at putting things in perspective, intentionally or otherwise.
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- YankeesfanLen - Jun 7, 2010 at 8:37 PM
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Can’t help but think that Jim Joyce is a double victim. From everything I’ve heard in the past week he made what he saw as a correct call which he had the experience and confidence to make, and it was and went terribly wrong. I ascribe no fault in that.
The problem was initially a lot of blown calls dating back to last year by any number of other umpires which were treated cavalierly by the umpires and MLB> This eroded some public trust in game officiating, and if this were not handled better could have been a perfect storm of fan resentment.
To the credit of Tigers fans, superior management on the part of Jim Leyland and the players, this evolved into a moment of great pathos and enriched all baseball fans.
The caveat remains to Joe West however- your actions will not result in similar outcomes. Be the silent portion of the game, and to all umpires: Get your calls as right as you possibly can.
And instant replay is not the devil’s work.
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