JS Tip 629: Accountability and a Baseball Game

From the Leadership Workshops: The Need for Accountability

In our Implementing Solutions to Real-World Problems workshop, we talk about the need for accountability. We partner that with responsibility. 

And the 2021 baseball season is underway. 

How are these related? This way: 

On June 2nd, 2010, Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game through the ninth inning. Twenty-six batters up; twenty-six batters down. No hits, no walks, no runs. One more out and he’d enter the record books. 

The twenty-seventh Cleveland batter, Jason Donald, hit a soft grounder between first and second. Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers’ first baseman moved to his right, fielded the ball, and tossed it to Galarraga covering first. Easy out. 

But. 

First-base umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. Galarraga’s bid for a perfect game ended right there. 

Joyce believed he’d made the right call until he saw an after-game replay. The replay showed the runner was out and Galarraga should have been credited with a perfect game. 

Joyce was heartsick. He was tearful. He publically apologized to Galarraga for getting the call wrong. “I just cost that kid a perfect game,” he said.

Galarraga forgave him for blowing the call. He said, “Hey. Nobody’s perfect.”

Let’s talk about this. What does the story have to do with accountability? On whose part? And what does it have to do with our daily business and personal lives?  

We love this stuff. 

Armando Galarraga: June 2nd, 2010