“I know nobody’s perfect. What are you going to do?”
Baseball is a wonderful metaphor for the value of learning how to understand and manage perfectionism. Batters are allowed two strikes of imperfection before being called out. Pitchers can throw three balls outside the strike zone and still have one more chance. Even the very best hitters succeed at bat only one-third of the time.
Perfectionistic ball players who don’t learn to manage inevitable imperfection probably don’t make it out of the minor leagues.
Perfection in baseball is not impossible but it is very rare, most certainly the exception rather than the rule. For inexplicable reasons, this season has already delivered two three perfect games by pitchers, the third being last night’s performance by Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga. Well, not really the third, since a botched call in the ninth inning with two outs prevented the game from being recorded in the record books.
Whether there is any question of the call’s being overturned or if this will finally lead to baseball’s adopting the use of instant replay is less interesting to me than how Galarraga handled the situation. As we watch the video of Armando Galarraga’s post-game reaction to the call, we can ask ourselves if we handle life’s imperfections—especially those over which we have no control—with as much grace. Those of us who are parents can also think about how we can encourage children to adopt the valuable combination of confidence and magnanimity, especially in our stick-it-to-them reality television culture, and if we ourselves model these qualities when it is clear that “nobody’s perfect,” not ourselves, not others.
Galarraga on umpire Jim Joyce (reported by Jason Beck of MLB.com):
“He understands. I give him a lot of credit for coming in and saying, ‘Hey, I need to talk to you to say I’m sorry.’ That doesn’t happen. You don’t see an umpire after the game come out and say, ‘Hey, let me tell you I’m sorry.’ He apologized to me and he felt really bad. He didn’t even shower. He was in the same clothes. He gave me a couple hugs.
“I know nobody’s perfect. What are you going to do? I was mad in the moment because I was nervous. I didn’t know what to do. I was like celebrating. Then I looked at him.”
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