Does Pollution Make Pitchers Better? Should Umpires "Cut the Cap?"

Thus far, the 2010 Major League Baseball season has been dominated by pitchers. Going into the season, many experts (or at least people on ESPN.com) believed that pitching lacked the star power it used to have even a few years ago. They said that with the recent retirements of Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, there were no starting pitchers left that were guaranteed to one day have a plaque in Cooperstown. They did say that there were promising players to fill that void, but the lack of veteran stars would be felt this season. Veteran pitchers like C.C. Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Mark Buerhle, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee were on the right track, but needed to sustain their level of play for a few more years before being considered Hall of Fame caliber hurlers. There were pitchers who were once considered stars who have not lived up to their billing in recent years like Barry Zito, Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, and Dontrelle Willis, and it would be interesting to see if they return to All-Star form this season. There is also a new guard of rising young stars in Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Zach Greinke and Jon Lester, but they still had years to go. Then everything changed with the start of the 2010 season...

On April 17, Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies pitched a no-hitter against the Atlanta Braves. It was the first no-hitter in Rockies franchise history.

On May 9, Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the 19th perfect game in Major League history and the 2nd by an A's pitcher (Catfish Hunter in 1968 was the first).

On May 29, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins. It was the 20th perfect game in Major League history and the 2nd by a Phillies pitcher (Jim Bunning in 1964 was the first). 20 days between perfect games is also a Major League record.

In addition, there were quite a few almost no-hitters. C.C. Sabathia of the New York Yankees came close to no-hitting the Tampa Bay Rays. Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox went 8 innings before allowing a hit against the Philadelphia Phillies. This spring has been a busy one for pitchers trying to get into the history books.

This increased number of dominant pitching performances has led me to speculate whether there is a correlation between that and something else unusual that is happening this spring. The gulf coast oil spill that was caused by BP seems to have an eerie connection with these fantastic baseball feats. I am torn, personally. I think that a perfect game is the coolest thing that ever happens in baseball, but on the other hand, I am also a really big fan of the environment and I get irate when stupid things happen to help destroy it. If they are somehow connected by forces beyond my control, I do not know how long I can take it.

It is also worth mentioning that 1989, the year in which the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred (which is now only the second biggest oil spill in U.S. history), was also a year of outlying incidents in the world of baseball. That was the year that Pete Rose was banned for life by MLB. A week after banning baseball's all time leader in hits, A. Bartlett Giamatti, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. In October of 1989, Game 3 of the World Series between the Oakland A's and the San Fransisco Giants had to be postponed due to a massive earthquake in northern California where both teams play. The turns of events that occur in Major League Baseball during a devastating oil spill are profound to say the least.

Earlier tonight, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had a chance at history and baseball immortality. Galarraga, who had recently been called up from the minor leagues after a disappointing spring training, retired the first 26 Cleveland Indians that came to the plate. An out away from an unprecedented fourth perfect game in a calendar year (Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox also had one last July), third in a month, and second in five days, he forced a ground ball to the first base side. Tigers first basemen Miguel Cabrera cleanly fielded it and Galarraga smartly covered first like the pitcher is supposed to do. Cabrera's toss was caught by Galarraga and he was about to celebrate when umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. Just like that, the perfect game and the no-hitter were spoiled, and the Detroit home crowd went silent. Tigers manager Jim Leyland went out to argue, but that never get's anybody anywhere in this sport. Joyce admitted after the game that upon watching the replay, he got the call wrong. Is this just a ploy by baseball to cut down on the flow of perfection that is running rampant in ballparks across the country? Is this their version of "cutting the cap"? All it takes is one bad call to make a game imperfect. Is baseball trying to protect the sanctity of the perfect game by botching calls so they can't happen as much? Major League pitchers should rise up and demand to be perfect after such oppression. Send a message to Bud Selig and all the other baseball bureaucrats that their Dr. Seuss (or BP) inspired idiotic cover up methods will not stop the oil from flowing. This could have been a career defining moment for a young pitcher who has struggled in the past, but instead it will forever be tarnished like the seabirds in the Gulf of Mexico who are drowning in the corporate sludge that fuels the capitalist desire to sell more and waste more with no regard for the finer things in life. For shrimp fishermen in Louisiana, their lives will never be the same because of the oil spill, and for Armando Galarraga, pitching will never be the same since he flirted with perfection and got rejected in the worst way.