Either way you look at it, both the umpire, Jim Joyce, and the pitcher, Armando Galarraga, are two men with the kind of class that makes the Philosopher want to be a baseball fan again. I just love this story. Well, for our readers it’s old news; but here’s an appreciative look at what is nothing short of diamond chivalry on Forgiveness and Sportsmanship from CatholicOnline’s James Penrice. Gentlemen like Joyce and Galarraga are a refreshing change from the strikers, whiners, playboys, and the big egos that too often make for sports news these past twenty years. Wasn’t at all like that back 2400 years ago in the Olympic times in my native Greece when victorious athletes were happy to get a laurel wreath, cheers from the gallery, and a bowl of chili. No, Galarraga can’t complain even if he wanted to. He knows he pitched a perfect game and he even got a new Corvette for a consolation prize. Yet the classiest act I ever read about in sports was Chicago Bear running back Walter Payton. One sports writer thought that His Sweetness was just too good to be true. When the man whom Mike Ditka called ” the greatest football player he had ever seen, but an even greater human being,” came down with a rare liver disease, primary sclerosing cholangitis, this writer claimed that it must be the result of taking PEDs (performance enhancing drugs). Payton had to temporarily endure the humiliating calumny, which he adamantly denied. The writer, regretting his words too late, apologized after the lie was published, but he was fired anyway, and rightly so. What did Payton do? He called the writer on the phone and forgave him. They became friends after that. I still remember seeing a film of this man, dying too young at forty-five of cancer, a gaunt figure walking slowly out to the pitchers’ mound at Wrigley Field, with his coach Mike Ditka standing there watching, to throw the opening ceremonial pitch for the Cubs 1999 home opener. If my memory serves me right, Walter Payton blessed himself before throwing the pitch. If I had the video of that I could verify what my memory is telling me. In 2002, Roy Taylor wrote a very moving tribute to Payton; it can be read on the Bears History site here.
CatholicOnline: GRAND RAPIDS, MI–One of the greatest calls ever made by a Major League Baseball umpire occurred June 2nd at Detroit’s Comerica Park. It’s a shame no television camera was there to record it. Rest of article is here with the latest on the consolation prize from Yahoo Sports here.
