Nobody’s Perfect—Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011)

This was released at the beginning of this baseball season, but is a finer read for the end of it, since The Detroit Tigers, who figure strongly in the narrative, have had such an extraordinary year, over a dozen games ahead of their nearest division rival with just a smattering of games to go.

This is a 242-page examination of a split-second call in which pitcher Armando Galarraga was denied the honor of pitching a perfect game because first-base umpire Jim Joyce declared runner Jason Donald to be safe after a hit in the ninth inning with one out left to go.

A description of the event and its immediate aftermath—Joyce releasing that he’d called it wrong—is all dealt with in the book’s first six pages. Then we get the interesting stuff of what was going through the pitcher’s and umpire’s minds at the time. The book celebrates Joyce’s honesty and Galarraga’s magnanimity. It gives these overnight sensations a chance to explain the rest of their lives and how they got to this moment. After the famous non-out, Joyce reflects, then bursts into tears. Galrraga just wants to be with his wife.