The Worst MLB Call of All-Time and Why It Was Actually Correct

I love every time this comes up on my Twitter timeline, because there are always people who either haven't seen it or get outraged all over again at what is seemingly — in a vacuum — the worst call in Major League Baseball history — Jim Joyce blowing Armando Galarraga's perfect game is worse, but the actual play was much closer than this one.

However, when you take a bit of a closer look, the call becomes much more in question. An angle from center field can make even the most ardent voices that Julio Lugo was out take a second look.

I don't know if that view would clear the legal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," but I do think it would disqualify the assertion that he was out by that same standard. I am personally of the opinion home plate umpire Jerry Meals made the correct call, regardless of whether he just wanted the game to end or not, but I think it's fair for anyone on either side to concede it's inconclusive.

That entire game was ridiculous even leading up to that final play. There was one little girl who kept screaming, "Let's go Pirates," for innings on end in a near-empty Turner Field in addition to the now infamous Cup Guy.

Foolish Baseball has an entire video breaking down how the call may have actually been correct, but however you break it down, it was definitely one of the strangest endings to an MLB game of the last decade. But that's what makes baseball such a beautiful, wacky game.