MLB Umpire James Joyce made the correct call of Safe at First Base on June 02, 2010 to end Perfect Game bid by Armando Galarraga.

Editor's note, the most comprehensive review and analysis of this story can be found by clicking here.

The Dashcam Detective was able to review the final out of the almost Perfect Game by Detroit Tigers Armando Galarraga against the Cleveland Indians on June 02, 2010 at the time it happened. The reason that over 99% of the public believes the safe call was wrong is 99% because of an error of omission by the Detroit Tigers announcing crew and their TV Replay Crew.

The ball is snow coned in Galarraga's glove for a reason, he was still bobbling it.

Even the GIF clip on Wikipedia continues the misrepresentation to this very day. The Wikepedia repeating GIF conveniently cuts off the play just as Galarraga touches first base. If the GIF had been allowed to continue the ball being bobbled would be obvious to all. Stunning as it may seem, the angle used to make Umpire James Joyce look like he made the incorrect call is the same angle that would exonerate Mr. Joyce, except that the play is always cut off before Jason Donald reaches first base. Is the reason the Wikipedia GIF is prematurely cut off and never shown in its entirety to hide the possibility that Mr. Galarraga was bobbling the ball?

Galarraga is both trying to catch the ball and locate first base with his foot. There is one ever so brief moment when the bobbling ball hits the webbing (below), but then comes loose again. By freezing the frame it deceptively looks like Galarraga held the ball long enough, but at regular speed the ball was never firmly in Galarraga's grasp until after Jason Donald had crossed first base.

Up above the ball just traveled from the center of the mitt and momentarily hits the upper webbing of the glove. However, Galarraga cannot devote his full attention to catching the throw because he is also making sure his foot is on first base. Below you can see the ball as it craters back into the middle of Galarraga's glove. If the Video frame several frames before this image had not been frozen by the video crew (as Galarraga touched first base), it would be obvious that the ball was still being bobbled by Galarraga as Jason Donald crosses first base.

The glove is open and the ball is rolling around in the webbing. This last frame is taken from a different video, which can be found here.  Unfortunately here too the video is manipulated by freezing the image several frames before this frame. However this is the best video I can find that does show the angle proving Galarraga bobbled the ball. All one has to do is remove the frozen frame so the sequence flows naturally and the bobbling will become self evident. Two other commenters have noticed the bobbling as well, if the frame had not been prematurely frozen, I believe most everybody would see the bobbling.

Umpire Joyce's angle meant he was staring right at the ball as it was moving around in  the webbing of Galarraga's glove and that is most likely whe he called Jason Donald safe at first.

Some may ask, who cares if Mr. Galarraga bobbled the ball, Jason Donald was still 6 to 7 feet away from first base at the time of the bobble. Simple math explains what happens next. Jason Donald reached first base in a highly explosive time of 3.76 seconds. To put 3.76 seconds in perspective, after Jason Donald hit the ball, he had to finish his swing, drop the bat, and start from a dead stop. Donald probably covered the final 81 feet in 3 seconds flat, or, 27 feet per second. 

Even a mere bobble of the ball by the pitcher could result in a delay of making the catch by a 1/3 of one second. In other words, Jason Donald would travel at NINE FEET at the very least before Galarraga can recover from his bobble. Donald can literally not be in the side view camera angle at the time the ball touches the glove, to Donald touching first base with his foot before Galarraga is able to properly contain the ball in his glove in that 1/3 of a second.

So how did the bobbling of the ball by the pitcher get overlooked? This is the sad part of the story. The Detroit announcer went over a checklist of why the baserunner could have been safe at first, but the checklist never mentioned the possibility of Galarraga bobbling the ball in his glove. The bobbling of the ball in the glove was intentionally or unintentionally covered up by the replay crew when they prematurely froze the frame as the Galarraga was touching first base with his foot.

The crowd started to boo as the replay that was shown to the fans froze the frame right at the point Galarraga's foot touched first base, in essence masking the fact that Galarraga was still bobbling the ball.

The two real victims in the Perfect Game that wasn't, aka the Imperfect game are James Joyce and Jason Donald. Donald's explosive take off out of the batters box with his arm's extended like like an airplane just lifting off of a runway resulted in a time of approximately 3.76 seconds from when he hit the ball until he touched first base. Many baserunners might have just run hard down the line and accepted their fate, but not Donald. Donald's run was close to the fastest a runner can run down the first base line. Once the story was spun that Donald was out when he was most likely safe, Donald was robbed of his moment of actually breaking up a Perfect Game with two outs in the ninth inning by running a very fast time to first base.

It is possible that Mr. Joyce was manipulated after the game into accepting responsibility for missing a call that he actually got right by possibly the same person or team in the Detroit Tigers Instant Replay booth who created the original freeze frame confusion to begin with?

Will the real truth ever come out? MLB sure took the hit for this mistake that was probably not a mistake. What of Umpire James Joyce? His life has been forever changed over a call he most likely got right.

And what of the Replay Crew? I watched the live broadcast and the Replay Crew NEVER showed the angle from the perspective of the second baseman looking at the first baseman, without also FREEZING the frame at the point Galarraga's foot was on the base, thus concealing the bobble. 

For context, did you know that in football if a wide receiver jumps for a thrown ball and it goes through his hands, the replay can be frozen right at the moment the ball was in between his hands to make it look like the ball had been caught. Obviously we all would see in real time that the football player did not catch the ball. But if a replay was shown to a fan who had not seen the original play, they could be fooled into believing the ball was caught by freezing the frame just as the football entered the wide receivers grasp.

Here's hoping someday, some way, James Joyce and Jason Donald will receive the proper credit they both deserve for their roles in the break up of a perfect game on what could have been the final out of the game if either Donald or Joyce had not done their jobs.

This is the Dashcam Detective reminding you that sometimes a fresh set of eyes can see something that was not seen the first time through. Sadly, what he have now has instead become fake news folklore.