Nobody's Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History

The Detroit Tigers, an umpire, a pitcher, and a mistake—one of the "classic, human, baseball stories" (Ken Burns, creator of the PBS mini-series Baseball).

The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in over 130 years, it has happened only twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga threw baseball's twenty-first. Except that's not how it entered the record books. That's because Jim Joyce, voted the best umpire in the game in 2010 and 2011, missed the call on the final out. But rather than throwing a tantrum, Galarraga simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound, and finished the game. "Nobody's perfect," he said later in the locker room.

"You might think everything that could have been said, replayed, and revealed about that night has already been uttered, logged, and exposed. You would, however, be as wrong as the unfortunate Mr. Joyce" (The Detroit News). In Nobody's Perfect, Galarraga and Joyce come together to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports. The result is "a masterpiece", an absorbing insider's look at two careers in baseball, a tremendous achievement, and an enduring moment of pure grace and sportsmanship (The Huffington Post).

Armando Galarraga is a pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He finished third in balloting for American League Rookie of the Year in 2008.

Jim Joyce has been an umpire in the major leagues for more than twenty years.

Daniel Paisner is a New York Times best-selling writer and collaborator on dozens of books, including On the Line with tennis great Serena Williams. He is also the author of The Ball: Mark McGwire’s 70th Home Run Ball and the Marketing of the American Dream.