I can’t believe what I just saw.  It was the fifth inning when I first noticed that Tigers’ pitcher Armando Gallaraga had a perfect game going.

From there I was glued to MLB Network watching the live look-in as the right-hander continued to mow down Indians’ hitters.

The ninth inning was full of drama starting off with one of the most clutch catches I’ve seen as rookie centerfielder Austin Jackson robbed Mark Grudzielanek of what should have been at least a double and kept the perfect game going.

Then Gallaraga wasted no time in taking care of Mark Redmond, getting him to ground out to shortstop.

What happened next will go down in baseball lore and be talked about in Detroit for years to come.

With 26 batters up and 26 batters down, Gallaraga went to work on Jason Donald. The first pitch was a strike looking.  Donald resisted a breaking ball in the dirt on the second pitch to take the count 1-1. Then he hit a ground ball to the right side that took first baseman Miguel Cabrera off the bag.

Gallaraga raced over to cover first and in a bang-bang play beat Donald to the bag.  It was perfect, or at least it should’ve have been. In what has to be the worst blown call in my three-plus decades of watching sports first base umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe.

Replays confirmed what most saw the first time around, the runner was out, and in a blink of an eye Gallaraga was robbed of becoming the 21st pitcher in Major League history to record a perfect game.

The fans of Detroit were robbed by having witnessed history and baseball fans everywhere were cheated out of an unprecedented third perfect game in a season.

Baseball already has instant replay in place, but it is only used to determine whether or not a ball if fair or foul and not to determine close calls on the base baths. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider.

For the record Gallaraga did retire Trevor Crowe, the Indians next hitter, as the Tigers won 1-0. It was the 28th straight batter the youngster retired on the night.

MLB detroit tigers, armando gallaraga, jim joyce, blown perfect game, mlb perfect games