Accountability was a theme for me this week.
This was a pretty eventful week in baseball - one perfect game by Roy Halladay, one "almost perfect game" by Armando Galarraga (more on that in a bit) and Ken Griffey, Jr.'s retirement. As someone who is pretty familiar with Halladay from his days of pitching with the Toronto Blue Jays and how he dominated the toughest offensive division in MLB, I thought this was just another reason that he should be a lock for the Hall of Fame – for the non-baseball fans, only 20 people in the entire history of baseball of 100+ years have achieved this accomplishment. I hope he does not get burned by not having a gaudy win total because he was on a team that didn't generate much offense while he pitched for them.
Griffey's retirement was bittersweet. I was actually fortunate enough to be at the game where he got his last hit, which led to a walk-off win for the Mariners. I did mention to my colleagues at the game when he came up to bat that if he won the game for the Ms, he would retire right after. As soon as the hit happened, I felt sad that Marc wasn't there with me. Griffey is probably the reason why Marc got into baseball. It took about 10 days for Griffey to release a statement about retirement. I believed it was time for him to retire and didn't think he should have been signed in 2010, but with all of that said, I was bummed that Marc didn't get to see him play this year. The walk-off was one of those moments that should have been shared with Marc, even if I was at Safeco Field for a work function.
Now to the "almost perfect game". To sum it up, Galarraga retired the 1st 26 batters of the opposing team. To get a perfect game, you need 27. The 27th batter hit a ground ball and was erroneously called safe when he should have been out, which would have given Galarraga his perfect game (the 21st in MLB history spanning over 100 years). The replays showed the batter was out by a good margin within 20 seconds and outrage hammered Twitter, Facebook and every other social media outlet known to the world.
Now baseball doesn't have instant replay for this scenario, so the only way the call could be overturned was if another umpire saw it differently. Jim Joyce probably had the best angle, so that wasn't going to happen. Joyce went into the umpire's room in the stadium and asked to see the replay. He was horrified by what he saw and immediately sought out Galarraga to apologize. Note that when the call was made that the batter was safe, Galarraga didn't argue at all and kept his composure. Joyce wanted to make his apology in-person and he faced the man who he robbed of being a part of MLB history. Bravo, Jim Joyce although when people say he "manned up", it makes me gag.
While it is great that Jim Joyce was immediately accountable for his mistake, I think it is sad that accountability is now the exception, as opposed to the norm. Everyone is praising Joyce for doing the right thing, but shouldn't people be accustomed to doing the right thing? What does it say about society today when we are shocked that someone owns up to their mistakes? Read here about more graciousness the next day, which will probably make me a fan of Jim Leyland and Galarraga for a long time (except when they play the Yanks, of course).
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ (disclaimer: I am a huge fan of her writing) wrote an eloquent column linking baseball, the "almost perfect game" and the fact that there is an instruction gap in our country about accountability. She put it as, "What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity." Too bad our elected officials (both parties) do not have the ability to demonstrate the same qualities as they try to figure out how to solve some of our nation's woes.
Accountability is a big thing for me. I was brought up to be accountable, although there were times I screwed up on this when I was younger and paid the price. While I am not perfect, if someone calls me out on something, I'd like to think I am able to acknowledge where I wronged someone and do what I can to make things right with the individual(s).
This week, I ended a friendship with someone who felt that they didn't need to be accountable even though they screwed up in a major way and multiple times. Their ego got in the way, which, in retrospect, I suppose is why this person was on thin ice to begin with. I won't say it wasn't a difficult decision, but it was something that had been brewing for some time so I had come to grips with it some time back. When I finally made the decision to end the friendship and communicated it to this person, they finally decided to own up to their actions. Up until this point, this individual had been given multiple opportunities to be accountable and they refused. It wasn't so much that they refused; they also deflected responsibility, which is also bad. When you finally get to the point that you decide to end a friendship, apologies don't really resonate.
Maybe this person will take a page from Jim Joyce and learn what accountability really means. Maybe they won't. But accountability for when you mess up is pretty important. None of us are perfect, so it's a pretty good idea to learn early on how to take your lumps, be humble, learn the value of apologizing and yes, be accountable. Normally I don't cover such personal topics on the blog, but given the events of the week, it just seemed appropriate. Life is too short to associate with people who do not understand how you treat meaningful folks in your life. Onwards and upwards!
And RIP to another high-character role model - John Wooden. Most of us could only aspire to handle ourselves with the dignity and class that he lived by.