Steve Horwitz hits some dingers
I usually find sports metaphors for non-sporting activities to be strained at best, trite at the mean, and misleading at the worst. Especially when discussing trade and economics, which are non-zero sum games, sports metaphors (where one team inevitably wins and one loses) are lacking.
But Steve Horwitz hits some dingers over at Coordination Problem with some observations about the lessons from last night’s terrible call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game (what would have been the third of the season) and what they can tell us about public relations and the rule of law. Steve’s a Michigander, so this has got to be especially painful for him since no Tiger has ever pitched a perfect game.
Steve writes:
The reaction by almost everyone after the game was really classy. The Tigers bitched a bit, but didn’t go off the rails. The umpire admitted he just flat out blew the call. No excuses, just “I screwed up and cost the kid a perfect game.” He also apologized personally to Galarraga. This is an outstanding lesson in how to handle a huge public mistake: don’t try to cover your tracks, just admit you screwed up and apologize to those affected. As frustrated as I am by the mistake, I totally admire Joyce for the way he handled it, and Galarraga too, who gracefully accepted the apology.
A great lesson for PR and for life generally. Unfortunately, firms and individuals almost always do the opposite: run, dissemble, cast aspersions, cast blame, and hide. That’s why “getting out in front of it” is so important; it’s the right thing to do and it looks best in the long run. Steve continues:
If I were Bud Selig, the commissioner, here’s what I would do to try to serve some rough justice. He can’t overturn an umpire’s call on the field, as that sets an awful precedent. But what he could do, I believe, is have the official scorer for the game change the play from a hit to an error. That would still deny Galarraga the perfect game but at least give him a nearly-as-cool no-hitter, and it would do so without overriding the ump’s judgment call. Just because the batter was ruled safe, doesn’t automatically mean it was a hit!
If I were Bud Selig, I’d drown myself in a bucket of my own spittle for two decades of unrelenting debasement of our national game, but that’s neither here nor there. Steve’s absolutely right on this: the rule of law and precedent are more important than correcting a one-time injustice. You can’t have baseball commissioners overriding calls on the field willy-nilly; baseball is a sport of rules and not of men (unlike some other sports). Steve’s remedy seems like the best available one.
