Two-dozen words

From the rainbow-wigged guy in the endzone to Tim Tebow's eye black (now banned by the NCAA), football has given John 3:16 more hype than most churches north of the Mason-Dixon.  While most Americans have heard of John 3:16, most couldn't tell you what it says nor its significance.

If you want the Bible in a nutshell, if you want all of life in a nutshell, you can find it in John 3:16.

So what is "John 3:16?"  The statement is excerpted from a conversation that Jesus is having with Nicodemus, an esteemed Jewish teacher who, unlike his peers, became intrigued with Jesus' teaching and his ministry.  It's the conversation of a man wondering and a God revealing.

Here's what Jesus said to Nicodemus as reported by his friend, John:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Why is this "life in a nutshell?" Let's break it down.

GOD LOVES HIS CREATION 

Let's focus it tighter.  God loves mankind because only man did he imbue with his image.  The rest of his creation serves as the wondrous backdrop for God's relationship with man.  Earth.  The breath-taking home that he provided for the pinnacle of his palette.  God had no need to create man.  What a blessing to us that he did that we might know him.

So what purpose man?  To glorify God and enjoy him forever, says the Westminster Catechism.  The wonder of it all, to borrow from George Beverly Shea, is to think that God loves me.  God loves mankind.  Humanity should glorify and enjoy the God who so deeply loves it.  It's the power behind the point.

MAN IS A REBEL 

Hollywood glorifies the rebel.  In real life, the four-year old pitching a tantrum in Wal-Mart better exemplifies the rebel than James Dean.  Because of the Fall (Genesis 3), man broke his perfect relationship with God and now enters a broken world in a broken state himself.  He remains created in the image of God (hence the sanctity of human life), but the infection of sin within his soul impels him away from God and toward deeper rebellion against his Creator.

The rebellion has earned a sentence, a righteous sentence, a just sentence.  It is death.  That is what the verse means when it highlights why God sent Christ (that man should not perish).  Apart from God's intervention, man's natural state and man's natural conduct have earned him the wages of death, eternal separation, and eternal punishment.

GOD INTERVENED

God, without need, moves to show his glory in an extraordinary act of creation.  He creates a being with volition and dignity, he creates a being "in his image" upon which he might lavish his oceanic love.  In short order, man gums up the works, despite the warning from God, and receives due sentence for his rebellion.  "There is none righteous.  No, not one"  (Romans 3:10b).

It could have ended there, a horrifying cosmic tragedy.  No, it does not end there.  A Hero intervenes.  The One who has been slapped in the face decides to take upon himself the punishment for such an afront so that the justly condemned party might live.  God the Son condescended to become man, a real man, fully God and yet fully man, that he might suffer the righteous penalty of death so that mankind might live.

MAN HAS HOPE

With natural man being in rebellion against the God who created him, it is no wonder the world teems with such horrors.  And yet there is hope. 

Because Jesus Christ, God the Son, bore the full fury of God's wrath toward sin and rebellion, because he bore the just punishment due to all mankind, God will then transfer the righteousness of Christ, the perfect and sinless life he lived, upon all who believe upon his name.  Jesus took my sin and gave me his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That gift, a free gift to man but oh, so costly to Christ, guarantees man eternal life.  What is that really?  It is a restored relationship with Almighty God.  While we are still under the physical effects of the curse (pain, suffering, death), that broken relationship, that intimate relationship which Adam enjoyed with God in the Garden, is now healed.  We have fellowship with him once again through the finished work of Jesus Christ.  One day, either when Christ returns or when we die our physical death, we will see him face to face and abide with him forever, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with those who have called upon his name.  Eternal life.

Though the bannerman no longer haunts NFL endzones and though collegiate athletes can no longer highlight it on their eyeblack, Jesus' plain statement to Nicodemus nearly 2000 years ago remains the single most important message for man today. 

John 3:16 is the message of the Bible.  It remains the reality of 21st century man .

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Indy's bane

Sometimes reality can creep you out far worse than fiction.  Just watch the Kagan hearings, for instance.

Here's another example.  A friend of my aunt sent these pics to her. My mom sent them to me. Just a nice day for a hike in southern Arizona.

Your typical, craggy desert hillside.  Oh wait, what's that under the tree?

Is that a pile of wood for building a fire?  Jackpot!

Oh, wait.  The pile's moving.  OH, MY!

One...two...three...oh, my...

Please tell me this individual used a zoom lens!

Kind of makes it hard to imagine the fulfillment of the following prophecy, but one day, fulfilled it will be.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:8-9

The dead feel no pain

"Recent studies" are like weather predictions.  Inexact at best and bound to change by noon.

A recent British study concluded that babies do not feel pain until 24 weeks after conception (here).  An American study had set the bar at 28 weeks. 

I'll cede the study.  I don't know that a baby "feels pain" or if it can respond to stimulus when it's only one cell, two cells, or even eight cells.  It's obvious that at some point, the en utero baby will feel pain.

The reason this "recent study" has gotten so much ink this past week is because the media believes this diminishes the argument of British pro-life forces seeking to shrink the line in the sand after which a child may not be aborted (yes, I understand that's a polite euphemism).

Pro-life forces have used the "pain of the fetus" argument to get legislatures to enact laws to curtail when doctors can destroy the child.  If you press those in the pro-LIFE camp, you'll find that pain is not at the root of their efforts.  They believe human life to be sacred and that innocent life must be protected.

Really, it doesn't matter if the baby feels pain at 24 weeks.  It won't matter if next week they determine the child doesn't feel pain until 13 weeks.  If the study is accurate, whether dismantled at 8 weeks and oblivious or at 28 weeks and in agony, the haunting end remains the same.

The child is dead.

The Pixar juggernaut

Hollywood is stupid.

I'll grant that studios, producers and directors might have scoffed the success of Pixar's first picture (and first smash hit), Toy Story.  They might have considered it dumb luck when the Pixar artisans struck gold twice.  A Bug's Life lit up the screen a week after Antz, Dreamworks' attempt to match Pixar's charm, was released.  The head-to-head proved only that folks enjoy a feel-good flick over Woody Allen's neuroses and melancholia any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Box office take, A Bug's Life $162 million, Antz $91 million.

Pixar double-dipped into the Toy Story well with the no-pretense title, Toy Story 2.  Come now, TS1 was great, Bug's Life amazing, surely, TS2 will bring us Pixar's first clunk.  Um, no.  Think Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive.  Think better, stronger, faster. 

"Okay, okay, okay," thinks Hollywood, wringing it's miserly knuckles.  "There can't be that many stories to animate.  Pixar's had it's run."  Little did the jaded west coast realize that a group of real people had begun to tell stories that would resonate with real America, not a utopia in the addled minds of Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga.  Pixar mesmerized a nation with a tale about the monster in every child's closet, Monsters, Inc.

I think of the film industry as the man who keeps hitting himself in the head and complaining to the doctor that it hurts when he does so.  Not only that, the idiot looks upon a delighted child enjoying a playground and wonders why that child isn't in pain, too.  The masochistic man watches from the street as the child climbs upon the swings.  Surely, this time the child will find ruin and disaster!  Nope, more laughter and wonder got churned out when Finding Nemo turned it up a notch yet again.

Five for five.  What's the secret?  Big Hollywood's Cam Cameron summed it up nicely.

These are not cartoons, they’re real movies told through animation. They’re not kids’ movies and they’re not grown-up movies. They’re just fun, clean, well-crafted films with great stories that people want to see. They don’t talk down to kids and they don’t punch adults in the ribs with inside jokes.

Pixar's telling stories, timeless stories that resonate from age eight to eighteen to eighty-eight.  Good is rewarded.  Evil meets its demise.  You can relate to the characters the moment they appear on the screen.  Nobody feels like they've been morally assaulted from the entrance of the prancing lamp logo to the run of the always wondrous credits.

Last weekend's release of the third and final dip into the Toy Story well, Toy Story 3, points to a Pixar that hasn't lost its stride.  I don't think they're even breathing hard.  They haven't "matured."  They haven't come to terms with "the real world."  They just keep telling stories you and I can get our arms around and ignoring the crotchety old man outside the fence who keeps hitting himself in the head (no, it's not Mr. Fredricksen).

Here's the list of the magic Pixar has crafted.  What's your top 5 look like?  Do you have a "least favorite?"  Funny, my least favorite Pixar flick pretty much blows away the lion's share of the movies I've seen in the last five years.  Is there one you haven't seen in awhile?  Rent it and treat yourself to one of the best reruns you'll see.

1. Toy Story
2. A Bug's Life
3. Toy Story 2
4. Monster's Inc.
5. Finding Nemo
6. The Incredibles
7. Cars
8. Ratatouille
9. WALL*E
10. Up
11. Toy Story 3

You can't help but wonder what's next.  I'm aching for The Incredibles 2, but that's just me.

Just another day: Fun at the Arab Fest

Thomas Sowell wrote a piercing piece earlier this week on the erosion of the rule of law in our land and the increased frequency with which our government operates outside its constitutional border.  Sadlly, most folks won't take the time to read it.  No pictures.  And it's about government.  Yawn.  We'd rather watch the World Cup.

The ideas Mr. Sowell discusses do not exist within the realm of theory alone.  What he argues has begun tapping on the shoulders of folks like you and me and hauling them off to jail.

For those with a cursory understanding of American geography, Dearborn, Michigan evokes blue collar imagery.  Hard-working factory folks on the skirts of Detroit.  Does it make you think of mosques?  It should.  Did you know Dearborn has one of the largest Islamic populations in the country?  Indeed.

It should come as no surprise that Christians compelled to preach the Gospel of salvation in Christ alone would seek to share that good news at Dearborn's annual "Arab Festival."  As Christ himself said, the healthy do not need a physician, and so a few bold Christians sought out the masses of sick.

Oops, bad choice.  I guess discussing what Muslims believe in the hope of having an open door to present the hope of the Gospel at an Arab festival is not protected by the Constitution.  These folks were not part of the Westboro Baptists, that foul group of individuals that picket funerals and carry heinious placards and that has little understanding for what the Bible plainly states.  The arrested individuals went with cameras (for their protection) to seek out those willing to talk.

It earned them abuse from the "security team" and arrest from the local police.  Neat.  Read it and watch the videos here.  Maybe one day on American streets the voices of Christians proclaiming a free and restored relationship with God through Christ will be silenced.  Then where will we be?

Ironic note. Drudge reports this afternoon that an earthquake felt from "Detroit to Buffalo" rumbled across the northern tier.  5.0 on Lord Richter's scale.

Ironic note II (here).  "Lord," as in "the year of our LORD," is being removed from a Connecticut high school's diplomas.  Neat.  That's surely offended three or four people over the past century.

Ironic note III (here and here).  There's a liberal bias to college's summer reading lists.  A whopping 2% of recommended books were considered conservative.  Well, it's something.  At least gay lit is taking off (here).

Sorry for the digressions, let's get back to Dearborn.  You might not like to hear the Gospel and you might not want to receive a pamphlet discussing what the Bible says, but you have the freedom to pass the person by or to trash the pamplet.  You do not have the freedom to prevent the person from discussing that idea with others.  It's not Constitutional.  This is not Russia amidst the height of Communism.  It's not China under Mao.

It's America 2010.  Do you know where your freedoms are?

Matt Treanor

I've mentioned before, much to the consternation of my brethren (and sisteren) from Minnesota, that I have adopted the Texas Rangers as a fill-in for my beloved Twins.  Why?  One, in north Texas, Minnesota games are hard to come by.  When the Rangers play the Twins, I'm guaranteed to finally catch a couple of Twins games and then you'll find me on the couch in my knickers singing, "We're gonna win Twins, we're gonna score!"  I might hope that the Twins don't decimate Rangers ace CJ Wilson as badly as they would CC Sabathia, but win they must!  Number two, Drew Pearson never played for the Rangers.  From stem to stern, the Texas Rangers are a hard team not to like.

Last night I tuned into the Rangers/Marlins game (in Miami) which I think three or four dozen Floridans saw live.  After eking a run out of Florida in the first, all remained quiet for a while.  Come the sixth, Ranger starter CJ Wilson started getting a bit errant to the tune of two runs and was yanked.  It remained 2-1 Marlins until the top of the 9th.

With two out and Josh Hamilton on third and speedy Julio Borbon on first, Ranger Manager Ron Washington (ex-Twin, btw) decides to pinch hit for the pitcher (good call) with Matt Treanor. 

Hmm...Matt Treanor.  Not as bad as Charlie Brown, mind you, but Joe Mauer he's not.  The catchers that started the year for the Rangers got sent down to triple-A for some, shall we say, honing, so to fill out the battery, Texas acquired Max Ramirez (batting a Mendoza-esque .218) and Matt Treanor. 

You've not heard of Treanor (pronounced "trainer")?  He's married to Misty May Treanor, one half of the beach volleyball duo of Treanor and Walsh that has dominated that sport at the last two Olympics.  Gold twice.  Here we have a professional baseball player who is known as "the husband of Misty May Treanor."  Ah.

Let's round out the picture.  He's batting .224, a vanilla wafer higher than Ramirez.  He's having a career season in that he's hit five (5) homeruns, more homers than he'd hit in any other season.  Okay, but the guy on third, Josh Hamilton, he has 15.  Behind the plate, he's fundamentally sound, but he'll not likely see a Gold Glove upon his mantle.

Shall we scatter a bit of lemon juice on this papercut?  He'd broken into the Big League with Florida.  Whenever you play against your old friends, you want to show them that they never should have gotten rid of you.  Ron Washington started Ramirez.

Oh, yeah, Misty May was in the stadium to watch yesterday's game, too.  So were other family and friends.  They all got to watch Ramirez play eight adequate innings behind the plate and whiff three-of-three times to the plate.  Ol' Matty warmed the pine.

So with the Marlins closer on the mound and the game all but in the bag for the Fish, out walks an ice-cold Matt Treanor to the batter's box.  It was almost like the end of "Rudy," but at the end of the movie, Rudy didn't decide the game.  Quiet, shy Matt Treanor did.

I wish I could figure out how to upload the video.  Please take a moment and go to the following link and listen to Texas Rangers announcers, Josh Lewin and Tom Grieve, celebrate an amazing first-pitch hit by Mr. Treanor.  (Once there, you'll have to click on the video to get it to play.)  Turn up the volume.  They were as stunned (as you'll hear) by the hit as I was.

No, it wasn't the World Series.  And he'll get no trophy or extra money for what he did.  But it's the stuff that little kids' dreams are made of...even when they're full grown.

The link:  Are you kidding?!  Go to the site and click the video.  It's a minute and a half of delicious play-by-play.

By the way, the Rangers held on in the ninth to win 3-2.  Well done, Mr. Treanor!

(the pic is of a pleased as punch, Ron Washington, high-fiving the jubilant Treanor who caught the ninth)

Slack

Number one, it would take me very few fingers to count the things Barack Obama has done in his presidency that have brought a smile to my face.  But then, I am but one amidst a couple hundred million.

Number two, I love Drudge.  If you want to know what's happening in the world, Drudge is the place to go.  He covers just about every news web-site known to man and highlights things relevant, things missed by other outlets, and things a bit off the wall.  It's not all doom-and-gloom.  You'll find some nuggets to put a smile on your face.

Drudge needs to lighten up on BHO.

But to finger Drudge is to finger much of the media.

Here's the deal.  On Sunday, Drudge (The Media) ran a headline "Golf to gulf," noting that the President had played a round of golf--gasp!--before south to check out the oil mess.  What, is he not allowed to play eighteen?  Does it nullify his compassion (benefit of the doubt, folks) for him to slice a few into the woods?

It got more pointed.  CNN ran a piece in April driving home the point that BHO has played golf more in his year and a half in office (32 times) than George Bush did during his eight years in office (24).  I have read that President Obama has now teed it up thirty-eight times. 

My response?  "SO WHAT?!?"  Good grief, the man has what must be the highest stress job in the world next to the BP PR-guy.  Please, Mr. President, if it helps you think straight, if it helps you reestablish your bearings, grip it and rip it!  Thirty-eight times?  That's not even once a week, folks.  Do you think we might let our President have four hours each week to enjoy the smell of a well-kept golf course?  The poor fellow has to play with an Secret Service entourage that closely eyes every squirrel and gopher on the links.  He can't even escape with a few friends and yuk it up.  No doubt there'll be a boom mic that picks up his jabs at Rush or Sarah.

So he flies to the Gulf of Mexico (what did he shoot, by the way?), and what's the news that comes out of the visit?  He ate shrimp and had a snow cone.  Come on!  I live in north Texas.  If I get to the gulf coast do you think I'm going to eat a Big Mac?  After walking the beach, do we besmirch him a snowcone??

I loathe most of what President Obama has done in office.  Still, he is a man.  He is entitled to his day of rest.  He is entitled to seafood while in the gulf region...even if he's standing watch over a disaster area.

And if he makes it to north Texas in August, he'd better get himself a snowcone.  My treat.

Teaching Christ to my kids

"Some of us grew up in hate filled "Jesus-loving" families and churches and got it ramrodded down our throats in a most ugly and abusive way. No, it is not OK to do that to kids in the name of God or Jesus. If you think it is you are no different than Bin Laden!"  ~ Anonymous

Boy, that'll make you pause to catch your breath.  An actual quote, by the way.

I hear this more and more.  It goes something like this. 

Parents have no business telling their kids what religion to believe.  It's tantamount to child abuse.  Let them figure it out for themselves.

I suspect that most who advocate that kids need to discover it for themselves are also the same ones eager for greater and greater government involvement in the raising of our children.  Let's see, parents can't do it but Big Brother can?

Sorry, I'm off point.  Back to parents teaching their kids about God.  Do I let my children play in the front yard without supervision, trusting them to choose wisely when it comes to the street?  Or, as the parent, do I provide the guidance, wisdom, and boundaries of experience?

We have guns in our house.  Lots of 'em.  Do I let my five-year old have her way with my .40 caliber Springfield XD as she would with her Leapster?  Or will I, when the proper time comes, train her in the proper handling of a weapon?

Many would like to compartmentalize God within the lives of his followers in 2010 America, but God will not be compartmentalized.  We must bow to him as God of all.  If he is only God of my Sunday mornings and my private prayer life and he's not the God of my job or the God of my marriage or the God of my entertainment or the God of the universe in my thought, word, and deed, then I do not honor him as God.  The rich, young man walked away from Christ dejected because he would not submit to Jesus (Mark 10:17-22).

God created me.  Science points that way, but the Bible tells me so (Psalm 139).  Mankind is broken.  The newspaper points that way, but the Bible tells me so (Romans 3:10-18).  I am broken.  My own heart points that way, but the Bible clearly tells me so (1 John 1:8). 

But that's not where we're left.  Jesus' death, burial and resurrection provided the solution to that brokenness (Romans 3:23-26).  History points in that direction, but the Bible tells me so.  It also tells me how that solution can be appropriated by me (Romans 10:9-11).  And my kids.  And it tells me how the God who loves me would have me live my life.  ALL of it.  What kind of parent would I be if I did not teach my children these things?

A final point.  We are independent moral agents responsible to God for our conduct.  Cutting to the root, our children, when grown, will have a choice.  They will choose whether or not to follow what dad and mom have taught them.

But for these few short years, God has delegated the responsibility for training up my children to me and my bride.  And so I will take up that enormous and terrifying mantle.  I am to teach them diligently to my children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).  I am to not "provoke them to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).

No threats to lop off their heads.  No surprise detonations on the playground.  No burqas for my girls.  Just exposing sin, disciplining when necessary, and teaching them about the freedom and joy of walking with Christ. 

Yeah, that's the modus operandi of Osama bin Laden.  All I need is the beard.

A glorious ladybug: Jewish DNA

One of the comical and wondrous aspects of parenthood occurs when your child "discovers" something "new."  It starts early.  What parent hasn't laughed hysterically when junior first noticed his fingers passing in front of his face at random intervals?  And then the startled awe on the month old face when he realizes that the muscle flinch in the right arm causes those micro sausages to hover there in front of the face.  Another flinch and--oh, now we get some real examination--the fingers find their way into the mouth.

A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen doing something grown-up.  In the front door storms my seven-year old with, "DADDY, COME AND SEE!  COME AND SEE!"  I bolt off my stool thinking that Mars had broken orbit had collided with the moon and the galactic cataclysm could be seen from the daytime sky.  "What?  What?" I beckoned.  "A ladybug!  Kara found a ladybug!"  Feign excitement, jaded daddy, feign excitement.  There is wonder there.  You have simply lost it.

Much of what is learned by our youngsters will be learned by their youngsters and was learned by all of us.  We shrug our shoulders and yawn.
 
My wife purchased some caterpillars a month ago hoping that they would spin cocoons and become butterflies (can you think of beautiful butterflies and not mimic Heimlich from "A Bug's Life"?).  Most cool experiments we give a shot at land with a "splut," but when the five caterpillars arrived, things looked up. All  five had survived the TLC of the US Postal Service.  In a few days, all cocooned, and within a week, all butterflied.  We felt like Watson and Crick!  I pulled out a microscope and stared in awe at the cocoon's remains, at what biologists have stared at for over a hundred years.  I felt as exultant as Emma when she rejoiced over Kara finding a ladybug.

Saturday night I came across a science headline that made me think of a child discovering it's shadow for the first time.  Check it out:

Jews Worldwide Linked by Common Genetic Ancestry

It's like I'd just read that some Harvard scientist discovered a ladybug.  Are you kidding me?  No, it was for real (here).  Some guy got published in the American Journal of Human Genetics --what?!  You're not a subscriber?-- for studying the genetic makeup of 237 Jews worldwide and discovering that Jews have a common ancestor.  I can hardly filet a fish much less dissect genetic code, but I know that fact without so much as a blood test.  In fact, I'll trump that.  Don't tell Mr. Geneticist, but I know the guy's name.

I sat down to write this post on stupid science.  You might as well prove water wet and Death Valley hot, but the more I thought about it, the more my mind changed.  My heart soared and sank in rapid succession.  It soared because it didn't surprise me a lick that science can't help but point directly to the God who is there and glorify his name.  Then it sank.  Science acts like it's discovered cancer's cure only because it refuses to accept what the Bible has stated for millenia.  I'd be willing to wager that science will soon find that within the DNA of the Jews 12 distinct and identifiable groups emerge, too (13 if you want to split hairs).

So tonight I'll try not to be jaded.  Ah, the ladybug.  Up goes the heart.  What a wonder that man has seen how the written word of the DNA declares the same thing as the written word of God!

Historic character, II: A motor city miracle

Imagine being Jim Joyce. 

In case you missed it, he's the ump that cost Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga a perfect game with a blown call on the very last out.  And it wasn't a close call.  But he's also the ump that upon seeing the replay recognized the gravity of what he had done and apologized to Galarraga and his manager for something that could not be undone (my thoughts here).

Imagine being that guy, but it gets worse.  A team of umpires stays with two baseball teams for as many games as they play.  The umpires rotate positions from game to game.  Jim Joyce had first base, the location of the blown call, on Wednesday night.  Thursday he had homeplate.  What must it have been like for him to stand in the tunnel and steel himself for what he would received from the Detroit fans when he took the field.  Only the little old lady from Kalamazoo who would be attending her first baseball game ever would have no clue.  Surely, the bitterness in the bellies of the tens of thousands would have soured to a boil.

Au contraire!  When Joyce took the field, the Detroit faithful stood and applauded him.  Yes, you read that right, they clapped for the man.  No, they weren't tickled over the missed call.  They stood to honor the man for his humility in admitting a horrifying call AND for apologizing to those he'd wronged.

Can you imagine such a thing in Boston?  Howzabout the Bronx?  Not me.  Frankly, I would not have imagined it in Detroit. 

The fairy tale continued.  Tiger manager Jim Leyland would typically deliver his team's lineup to the homeplate umpire at homeplate before the start of the game along with the opposing team's manager.  Rather than go himself, Leyland sent the lineup in the hand of Galarraga.  Joyce wept at the dignity shown him by so many.  Who wouldn't?

Who'd-a-thunk that from the worst call in major league baseball history would come three of the most striking examples of character in sport.  The grace and forgiveness of Armando Galarraga.  The contrition and humility of Jim Joyce.  And the grace and mercy of the Detroit Tigers, fans in attendance last night, team, and manager.

Makes you want to head out to the ball park.

Historic game. Historic character

If you're not a baseball fan, would you hang with me for a couple of paragraphs?  Something--somethings--incredible happened yesterday and you should hear about them.

A perfect game in baseball.  Do you know what it is?  No, it's not the same as a no-hitter.  As phenomenal an accomplishment as a no-hitter is, a batter for the opposing team might get on base through a walk or by getting hit by an errant pitch.  You'll see pitchers toss no-hitters every year.  Not so much the perfect game.

In a perfect game, twenty-seven batters (three per inning) come to the plate and twenty-seven batters return to the dugout after striking out, grounding out, or flying out. 

Still don't get it?  Prior to the kickoff of the 2010 season, only eighteen pitchers have pitched a perfect game at the major league level.  Ever!  In fact, between 1968 and 1981, no MLB pitcher recorded a perfect game.  This year, heads swam because in the short span of three weeks, Major League Baseball saw two more perfect games thrown, one by Oakland A, Dallas Braden and one by Philadelphia Phillie phenom, Roy Halladay.  Two in one year?!  Wow.  What a season and we're just a third into it.

Then came last night.

Detroit Tiger, Armando Galarraga, tried to make it a trifecta.  Through eight innings, he sat down the twenty-four Indians that faced him (not a racist comment, by the way.  We do still have some sane organizations that understand Native American references are honoring and not insulting (i.e. the NHL and the Chicago Blackhawks.  The NCAA, on the other hand...). 

Then came the ninth inning. 

Indian veteran Mark Grudzielanek crushed Galarraga's first pitch into the gap in deep left center.  As baseball officianados say, you can't have a perfect game without a key defensive play.  The defender that came through for Galarraga was centerfielder Austin Jackson.  Mr. Jackson covered an uncoverable distance and made an uncatchable catch to salvage the perfect game through 25 of 27 outs.  Galarraga said afterward that seeing a teammate pour it all out to make such a play steeled him toward perfection.

Veteran catcher and batter #8 in the lineup, Mike Redmond, grounded out for out #26.  Up comes batter #9, rookie Jason Donald.  Understand, you don't want to be the team that has a perfect game thrown against you.  You want to be the one to break up the perfect game.  After watching a strike and a ball go by, Donald swung at pitch #3 and bounced it toward first base.  First baseman Miguel Cabrera slid to his right and, like any good fielding pitcher, Galarraga tore toward first to cover the bag.  Cabrera tosses, Galarraga catches (with his foot on the bag), and Donald arrives at the bag a bit more than a half-step late.  Perfect game!

Not.

Veteran umpire Jim Joyce stationed at first base called Donald safe, but I believe he was the only man on the planet who missed the call.  Even Donald, upon seeing that Joyce had ruled him safe, put his hands on his head in stunned disbelief.  Miguel Cabrera's hands were in the same you-gotta-be-kidding-me position.  The manager, Jim Leyland, protested rightly, longly, and loudly.  (If you haven't seen the play, here you go.)

The most surreal thing about the scene?  Armando Galarraga stood there and smiled.  Granted, the smile was in shock, but unlike 97% of athletes, he did not get in the face of the umpire and protest like a child forbidden to play his seventeenth consecutive hour of Wii.  He returned to the mound and got the 28th batter to ground out.

To his credit, Jim Joyce reviewed the video after the game and admitted he got the call wrong (a great take by Hall of Fame pitcher Curt Shilling here).  "I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay...It was the biggest call of my career, and I (blew) it."  He recognized the depth of his error, "I just cost the kid a perfect game."  He went on to apologize to Leyland and to Galarraga.  The latter noted the depth of Joyce's grief when he recognized that the umpire hadn't even yet showered before he came to apologize.

Jim Joyce said he deserved everything that was said about him on the field.  "I would have been the first person in my face," he said.  Then he noted, "He (Galarraga) did not say a word to me (on the field)."

Surely Galarraga harbored bitterness.  "No, nobody's perfect," he shrugged.

I beg to differ.  Armando Galarraga was perfect last night.  Twice.

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NOTE:  Commissioner Bud Selig, who would have the authority to overturn such a call, said he would not.  Of all the people in MLB that would like to see the call overturned, my bet is that none would love to see it overturned more than umpire Jim Joyce.