perfect game that wasn't?

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yuriya

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To understand the huge fuss over Armando Galarraga, Jim Joyce and the "perfect game" that wasn't, thanks to umpire Joyce's blown call last night, you need to understand that baseball's "perfect game" is not only one of the most difficult feats in team sports but also one of the rarest.

"The perfect game that wasn't"--I know what it means and my heart goes out to Galarraga, but I'm curious about the grammatical structure of this phrase. If "that" is a relative pronoun, shouldn't it be the perfect game that wasn't a perfect game? Any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance.
 

Barb_D

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Yes, either "wasn't a perfect game" or "wasn't meant to be."

It wasn't a perfect game... but it was... so calling it "the perfect game that wasn't" give homage to the pitcher who really did pitch a perfect game, no matter what it's called.


I understand he handled himself with incredible grace with the umpire.
 

yuriya

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If "the perfect game that wasn't" can mean the perfect game in all but name, can I say that "he is the President that (or who) isn't" in a sense that he is the defacto President? More importantly, is this kind of usage common?
 

Jay Louise

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If "the perfect game that wasn't" can mean the perfect game in all but name, can I say that "he is the President that (or who) isn't" in a sense that he is the defacto President? More importantly, is this kind of usage common?

Yes you could. I would say that this isn't common in everyday speech. It is more common as a headline or in a book title.
 

Raymott

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If "the perfect game that wasn't" can mean the perfect game in all but name, can I say that "he is the President that (or who) isn't" in a sense that he is the defacto President? More importantly, is this kind of usage common?
I look at it a bit differently.
The perfect game almost happened. Perhaps it should have happened. But it didn't.
"The perfect game that wasn't" does not actually refer to the game that was played at all. It refers to the game that should have happened but didn't. It's a hypothetical game that shares most of the events of the real game that was played, except for the part where the umpire made that decision. Since these two games were almost the same game, it's understandable that people might be tempted to understand the real game played as being "the perfect game that wasn't."
But the real game was almost a perfect game, or an almost perfect game that was.
 

Barb_D

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Hi Ray,
In this case, the pitcher got 26 batters out. The 27th SHOULD have been out, but the umpire botched the call. There is no room for doubt - replay shows it was wrong, HE said it was wrong, everyone said it was wrong. It was a perfect game. The only thing that kept it from being a perfect game was the bad call.

So the game DID take place. It WAS a perfect game. Only,it wasn't because of human error.

It was the perfect game that wasn't [perfect].
 
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