Back again after a long hiatus. I'll spare you the excuses.

First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.

All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.

Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.

One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.

Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.

Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.