WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says the blown umpire’s call that cost a young Detroit Tigers’ pitcher a perfect game dramatizes the need for Major League Baseball to “take a look” at more instant replay.
Obama was asked in an NBC interview to comment on the incident involving umpire Jim Joyce and Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga. Joyce mistakenly called Cleveland’s Jason Donald safe at first base on what would’ve been the final out. While many Tigers argued, Galarraga merely smiled at his misfortune and went back to the mound.
In the interview broadcast Tuesday, Obama said he wouldn’t prejudge a review by MLB of the replay policy. And he said he thought Commissioner Bud Selig “made the right call” in not awarding a perfect game after the fact.
