The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. No hits, no walks, no men reaching base. Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in more than 130 years of Major League Baseball, it has only happened twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga threw baseball’s twenty-first perfect game. Except that’s not how it entered the record books.

That’s because Jim Joyce, a veteran umpire with more than twenty years of big league experience, missed the call on the final out at first base. “No, I did not get the call correct,” Joyce said after seeing a replay. “I kicked the sh*t out of it.” But rather than throw a tantrum, Galarraga simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound and took care of business. “Nobody’s perfect,” he said later in the locker room.

In Nobody’s Perfect, Galarraga and Joyce come together to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that was will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports up until this pivotal moment.

“This is an amazing story… the magnanimity of Galarraga, the honesty and courage of Joyce, everybody coming together makes it one of those classic, human, baseball stories.” - Ken Burns

“The reason that there are only twenty perfect games in the history of baseball is that everything has to go right and everyone has to be perfect for that day to happen. In Nobody’s Perfect, Armando Galarraga, a young pitcher looking for his place in history, and Jim Joyce, arguably the finest umpire of his time, show us why. With the skilled Daniel Paisner, they reveal major league baseball at its core, the day to day struggles of a young pitcher and the grind of umpiring in the major leagues. If you are a baseball fan, I dare you to name all twenty days of perfection. But after reading Nobody’s Perfect, you will never forget this game or these two men.” - Ron Darling

“A masterpiece.” - Steve Kettmann, Huffington Post

“A wonderful example of sportsmanship and maturity.” - George Will