Gaunlet

Just a quick run-through of opinions from last night:

• We've all seen the clip of Armando Galarraga getting completely screwed out of his perfect game. In case you didn't, here it is. I believe one of two things should happen. Jim Joyce should just quit, or baseball should finally adjust to modern times and fully embrace instant replay to get the calls right. This is an obvious case where having replays in a non balls-and-strikes situation would have benefited the game, as history would have been made. To his credit, Joyce has handled it with a pretty substantial amount of regret and remorse. Still, that doesn't excuse one of the worst calls from an umpire in baseball history since Don Denkinger.
• Not worried about the Hawks loss tonight. It was too much to ask the Hawks to win 8 straight playoff games, let alone to sweep the Flyers. The Flyers played very well, and more importantly seemed to be playing with seven players out there, particularly in the passing lanes. Good for them. The Blackhawks will now have to adjust to what the Flyers did, and I'm confident that they will do precisely that on Friday night. And I hate to bring this up Philly fans...but Kate Smith is still dead.
• File this one under Weird. Ken Griffey (Call Me, Call Me) Jr has decided to retire....today? This just seems a little fishy to me, simply because he deserved better than this. Junior (when healthy) was one of the greatest baseball players to ever play, and that's not being hyperbolic. He was everything that the term "5 Tools" was invented to describe the first 11 years of his career. It seemed perfunctory that when he retired he was going to hold all of the records. Obviously that ended up not being the case, but he certainly did achieve some historic numbers with 630 career home runs. Of course he was never the same player after signing with the Reds in 2000. Absolutely injuries robbed him of his elite player status, and sure there was the report earlier this season that he was asleep in the clubhouse when the Mariners were expecting him to pinch hit. Who knows if it's true or not? Personally I believe it was since players sleeping in the clubhouse is way more common than people realize (looking at you Lee Smith, and Kyle Farnsworth). Regardless, I guess it sort of makes sense he retires this season considering another great player retired in the same year in Frank Thomas. Still, this really could have been handled a little better, especially for a player that's about close to a lock for the Hall Of Fame as a lock gets these days.