June 3, 2010
GROB: General Motors strikes out
JAMES GROB
Courier sports editor
OTTUMWA — Armando Galarraga was shafted.
The pitcher for the Detroit Tigers threw a perfect game Wednesday night — but he didn’t.
It would have been just the 21st perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball, and surprisingly, the third this season.
Three in one season is a lot. Consider the fact that no Detroit Tigers’ pitcher has ever pitched a perfect game. Galarraga would have been the first.
Galarraga retired 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians batters on Wednesday evening. The 27th, Jason Donald, hit a routine grounder between first and second base. Tigers’ first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded the ball and threw to Galarraga, who stepped on first base for the out.
But umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. He said Donald was safe. He even admitted his error later, after he had seen the replay. Joyce personally apologized to Galarraga and hugged him after the game, then took the field at Comerica Park on Thursday in tears.
Thursday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced that commissioner Bud Selig won’t reverse the call. Selig did announce that Major League Baseball will look at expanded replay and umpiring, but that was it.
So Galarraga’s night will go down in the history books as a one-hit, 3-0 shutout.
You have to feel bad for the guy. He got shafted.
So Detroit’s own General Motors gave him a car Thursday. Maybe that will make him feel better.
Chevrolet announced on Thursday that the company has awarded Galarraga a 2010 Corvette convertible, recognizing his outstanding performance on and off the field.
Galarraga is 28 years old. He was born in Venezuela. Last season, his salary was right around $435,000. I’m sure it’s more than that this year.
He was shafted Wednesday, but I think the guy can afford to buy his own car.
GM and Chevrolet should come up with a better publicity stunt than this.
How about a free car — or the financial equivalent — to all the fishermen and other individuals on the Gulf Coast who are currently getting shafted because of our nation’s dependence on crude oil? This dependence has been perpetuated by the reluctance of corporate execs at the “Big Three” auto companies to manufacture and mass-market alternative-energy vehicles.
How about a free car — or the financial equivalent — to each of the employees at small-town auto dealerships across the country? Last year, GM took bailout money from the public and “reorganized.” Part of the restructuring project was to end the franchise agreements with a lot of these small-town car dealers.
Some of those car lots have been open 50 years. Some even longer. Small Midwestern communities have come to depend on them. Their customers have been loyal — to GM and to the local dealers.
GM shut a lot of them down and left a lot more of them in limbo — many dealers still don’t know if they’ll be able to sell new cars next year or not. Nor do their employees.
These are the people who are the first to chip in when a local Little League team needs new equipment, or the kids in the marching band need new uniforms. They’ll clear out their showroom on a Saturday so local artists can still display their work when it rains on the art fair on the town square.
They sponsor fishing derbies and dance marathons to raise money for local charities. They give money to food banks and put jars on their counters to raise money for kids with leukemia.
They buy newspaper, radio and television ads. And they pay taxes — city taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, sales taxes, property taxes.
Small communities are dependent on people like this — people that GM left in limbo.
Armando Galarraga was shafted out of a perfect game, and General Motors saw an opportunity for a perfect publicity stunt.
And the rest of us still live in an imperfect world.