SBNation.com: All Posts by Grant Brisbeehttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/46737/sbn-fave.png2019-01-29T16:01:39-05:00https://www.sbnation.com/authors/grant-brisbee/rss2019-01-29T16:01:39-05:002019-01-29T16:01:39-05:00The unwritten rules of being a baseball fan
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<p>Are you an adult who wants to bring a mitt to a baseball game? Are you wondering if it’s OK to leave the ballpark early? Here are the definitive, binding answers to your very important questions about being a baseball fan.</p> <p id="hhzWEM">In my eight years here at SB Nation, I have specialized in <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/baseball-unwritten-rules-fights-home-run-watching">writing about the unwritten rules of baseball</a>. These are often silly rules that result in baseballs being thrown at butts, which is a silly consequence in a silly game. People love to take those unwritten rules seriously, and I’ve had a lot of fun deconstructing them. </p>
<p id="lLcScy">However, for the past few years, I’ve been collecting a different set of unwritten rules. These have to do with ... us. I’m talking about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan, and they’re incredibly important. </p>
<p id="PHhvnQ">Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. Take the unwritten rules of baseball, turn up the silly about five or six notches, and you have the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. Just live your life, buddy. Don’t let some nerd on the internet tell you what’s right and what’s wrong.</p>
<p id="VmhNIh">Yet it doesn’t hurt to have a friendly discussion about this. Should adults bring a mitt to a baseball game? When can you leave a blowout without feeling like a bad fan? Should you give a foul ball to a kid? What about throwing a home run back on the field? Is it OK to talk about your team using the royal pronoun? (No.)</p>
<p id="pQddKi">You are not bound by these unwritten rules. All I ask is that you consider them. What does it mean to be a good fan? What does it mean to be a good <em>human</em>? </p>
<h3 id="KX63xt">Welcome to the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. </h3>
<p id="5b9vD7"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201678/unwritten-fan-rules-saying-we-when-referring-to-a-sports-team">The unwritten rules of saying ‘we’ when referring to a sports team</a></p>
<p id="TolYTf"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18191728/unwritten-fan-rules-adult-bringing-a-mitt-to-a-baseball-game">The unwritten rules of an adult bringing a mitt to a baseball game</a></p>
<p id="ssTBJf"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201772/unwritten-fan-rules-of-throwing-an-opponents-home-run-back-on-the-field">The unwritten rules of throwing an opponent’s home run back on the field</a></p>
<p id="0IqKCG"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201727/unwritten-fan-rules-getting-your-own-last-name-on-teams-jersey">The unwritten rules of getting your own last name on the back of a team’s jersey</a></p>
<p id="ENZpTZ"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18196624/unwritten-fan-rules-of-giving-your-foul-ball-to-a-random-child">The unwritten rules of giving your foul ball to a random child</a></p>
<p id="6NznZU"><a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18200812/unwritten-fan-rules-of-leaving-a-baseball-game-early">The unwritten rules of leaving a baseball game early</a></p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18202213/the-unwritten-rules-of-being-a-baseball-fanGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of throwing an opponent’s home run back on the field
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<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both.</p> <p id="RYdvME">When I was a kid, I dreamt about this exact scenario. It was something that I plotted and planned, daydreamed about and wished for. I wanted to hit an opponent with a baseball as he rounded second base after a home run. </p>
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<p id="kYZ0FB">It’s not just an act of defiance, but it’s also an exhibition of your athletic talents on a grand stage. In my prime, I absolutely could have winged a ball from left field all the way to shortstop, and I would have relished the chance to show this off in front of thousands of people. </p>
<p id="agzP83">In retrospect, this was a dumb dream. I could have dreamt about winning an Oscar or crane-kicking a bully in a karate tournament, but I was stuck on that idea of drilling a guy who did what he was supposed to do. Doing this on purpose is rude and possibly illegal, and I can’t recommend it. </p>
<p id="zbwe6b">There’s a small part of me that still wants to do this, of course. Right in the butt, Cody Bellinger! Take that!</p>
<p id="0mQUOy">But what about the general idea of throwing an opponent’s home run back on the field? Is this or is this not a worthy goal? Well, we have unwritten rules to parse, it appears. </p>
<h4 id="NXniLB">Rule #1: Don’t make your kid do this</h4>
<p id="bWnv7A">I <a href="https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/08/12/2377782383/1534110795708/asset_2500K.mp4">think about this video often</a>. </p>
<div id="nR0ti4"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><video controls="" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;">Your browser does not support HTML5 video.<source src="https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/08/12/2377782383/1534110795708/asset_2500K.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source></video></div></div>
<p id="JVIDHU">I understand it in a way. The opponent’s home run is tainted. It’s an unfortunate outcome breathed into life, and you’re holding it in your hands like a cursed skull. Out, damned spot, and all that. </p>
<p id="IuuEn4">Out of 20,000 people or more, you’ve been selected in this weird lottery to hold this totem of sadness. If your first instinct is to reject it, well, I can’t blame you. That seems like a reasonable response. </p>
<p id="Fct4q2">Just don’t expect your kid to understand. </p>
<p id="i3bZLB">Whittle that above sentence down a bit. Out of 20,000 people or more, you’ve been selected in this weird lottery ... and it’s awesome. If you’re a kid, it’s impossible to ignore the significance of this. All day, you’ve been seeing other people — other kids — excitedly hold baseballs in the air. Except that feeling isn’t just confined to this game. You’ve seen it for months, years. Even if you’re 10 years old, you probably have years of experience when it comes to other people getting excited about a foul ball or home run. Wouldn’t it be cool if it happened to you?</p>
<p id="0AYZta">And then it happens to you. And then your dad tells you to get rid of the cursed baseball, to fling it with all your might. </p>
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<p id="xfzUqd">Look at the proud papa! Look at the utterly confused child! Both reactions are valid, but I have to think the kid just wants the baseball. To roll it around in his hands. To realize that it was a part of the very game that he was just watching. To think that a Major League pitcher held it and threw it, and that a Major League hitter smashed it over the fence. Oh, the wonder of a home run ball. </p>
<p id="JrNPhv">No one is going to yell at you for letting your kid keep the ball. And it’s not as if you’re going to jinx the Reds. They’ll suck with or without your help.</p>
<p id="OfYGXK">There is value in superstition. There is a much more tangible value in letting your kid keep the baseball.</p>
<h4 id="LrHFF4">Rule #2: If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid</h4>
<p id="zNdOqe">A lot of the rules in this series have been ambiguous, which has lead to a whole bunch of tortured parsing on my part. Sorry. It’s what I do. </p>
<p id="JPRYqn">This is not an ambiguous rule, though. If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid. Your kid, if applicable! Some other kid if not. </p>
<h4 id="sPDNVJ">Rule #3: If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid</h4>
<p id="kIvKJt">There are few rules in life this uncomplicated. If you have the urge to wing the baseball back onto the field for a sense of satisfaction that will last exactly four seconds, think about the thrill that a kid will get from that baseball for the rest of the night. For the entire next day at school. It’s worth it. </p>
<h4 id="gKIwHV">Rule #4: If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid</h4>
<p id="BFyVWF">There will be pushback at first. There are a lot of goobers who are incredibly invested in the idea that everyone needs to hew to their unwritten dogma, and they will <em>scream</em> at anyone who is thinking about keeping the home run ball. </p>
<p id="UiymWp">Once the ball is given to a kid, though, even those people shut up. Even at Wrigley Field, which is the peer-pressure-of-throwing-a-home-run-back capital of the world, they shut up. Just give it to a kid, and everyone understands. </p>
<h4 id="u1nghF">Rule #5: If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid</h4>
<p id="WeZZ2P">Do you know what happens to a home run ball when you throw it back? Either or a player or team employee retrieves the ball, and they toss it to the side. Another team employee picks it up and tosses it into the stands. Usually, they’ll give it to a kid. </p>
<p id="BDiUnS">You had a chance to light up a kid’s life, and you passed. You gave that gift to someone who’s just punching the clock and doing their job, and they probably did the same thing five times that month, so they didn’t even appreciate it. You could have been a hero. But you opted for five (5) cool points instead. </p>
<p id="3pePhj">Note that cool points evaporate almost immediately. Now you are without cool points. </p>
<p id="MfPTNd">Hero points, though, why those stick with you. That’s the kind of karma that sticks to you, that buoys your every step, even after you’ve long forgotten what you did to get it. You were the lucky dork who happened to be closest to a baseball hit over the fence, and you were able to turn that into a happy child. They’ll need these memories when the crops fail and the water wars start. </p>
<p id="eEv94m">Just give it to a kid. </p>
<h4 id="pFmrhO">Rule #6: If you catch an opponent’s home run, just give it to a kid, unless you’re reasonably sure that you can hit Giancarlo Stanton in the butt from the Green Monster</h4>
<p id="QMYDJc">I mean, there have to be <em>some</em> exceptions.</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201772/unwritten-fan-rules-of-throwing-an-opponents-home-run-back-on-the-fieldGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of leaving a baseball game early
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<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both</p> <p id="q3uiOw">The unwritten rules of being a fan start with the presumption that you care about what other people think. There are no actual penalties, no baseballs to be thrown at your butt. If you want to wear a glove and don’t mind if other people think you look like a weenie, go for it. If you want to keep the foul ball that landed in your adult hands, by all means. </p>
<p id="S2QdVN">And if you want to leave a baseball game early, just go. </p>
<p id="c151aV">Baseball games are long! Occasionally, they’re boring. You might have to be up early for work. Maybe the DC Metro is shutting down before the game is over. Maybe it’s cold or humid or maybe your seats are awful. People make fun of Dodger fans for arriving late and leaving early, but those are the people who have never sat in post-Dodger traffic for two hours after sitting in traffic to get there. Make fun of them when they leave early despite having some sort of ultra-necessary futuristic super-tunnel under the city to whisk their cars away, one by one, but not now. It really does suck getting out of there. </p>
<p id="iNLdSL">So we’re done in a couple paragraphs. If you don’t like the movie, walk out. If a video game starts to annoy you, turn it off. And, by all means, if the men in pajamas are swinging the cylindrical stick in a way that bores you, get the hell out of there. </p>
<p id="q6RzUK">However, I regret to inform you that there are always howevers. </p>
<h4 id="ziNF9h">Rule #1: If you have seats behind the plate or dugout, watch the whole game, c’mon, this isn’t even up for debate</h4>
<p id="gHvxq0">There is absolutely nothing worse than seeing a collared, tieless goon behind the plate, chatting it up for the first six innings, and then disappearing in the seventh. Someone showing up and taking a scarce resource because they have connections, then leaving because they didn’t <em>actually</em> care about it, is a little too on the nose for me. I use baseball as a way to escape this hellworld, not as a way to remember why everything is awful.</p>
<p id="1c87pV">If you are privileged enough to enjoy front-row seats, you stay. I don’t care if it’s <a href="https://www.twinkietown.com/">Twins</a>-<a href="https://www.azsnakepit.com/">Diamondbacks</a>, Steely Dan, or <em>Garfield: The Musical!</em> It’s a mix of polite and self-aware to stick around, but it’s also something of an offering to the front-seat gods, a pinch of salt thrown over your shoulder, lest you find yourself in between jobs and hanging out in the parking lot for the <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/world-series">World Series</a>. </p>
<h4 id="vkH79W">Rule #2: If you have kids with you, do what’s best for them</h4>
<p id="Dd6uBk">Some kids can hang until midnight. Some kids start expelling cotton candy through their pores and mumbling Latin by the sixth inning. Different families have different needs. Godspeed. </p>
<h4 id="JcMbMJ">Rule #3: If you do not have a specific reason to leave, six runs is the magic deficit</h4>
<p id="YlLamj">Cold is a reason. Tired is a reason. Bored is a reason! They’re not always <em>great</em> reasons (pack more clothes, get more sleep, and screw around on your phone like the rest of us), but I won’t pretend that you’re going on fan probation for leaving early for any of these. Sometimes you think you’re in the mood for a baseball game, you get there, and it turns out you’re really not. I do this with pastries at the coffee shop all the time. </p>
<p id="vI1EVi">But if you’re leaving specifically because your preferred team is getting blown out, there is at least some decorum to follow. </p>
<p id="wKiBGZ"><strong>One-run deficit</strong><br>Unacceptable.</p>
<p id="eklJEF"><strong>Two-run deficit</strong><br>C’mon, you know this is possible, you don’t need me to explain this.</p>
<p id="NQCnEM"><strong>Three-run deficit</strong><br>You’re two bloops and a blast away, sit back down.</p>
<p id="gCYOYM"><strong>Four-run deficit</strong><br>Literally one swing away, where are you going? </p>
<p id="kbaPSg"><strong>Five-run deficit</strong><br>You see, baseball is the sport without a clock, and that is a part of its enduring beauty. One thing people forget is [<em>talks in monotone for 37 minutes without taking a breath</em>].</p>
<p id="DKEwKj"><strong>Six-run deficit</strong><br>Yeah, you’re good. Six runs down in the bottom of the ninth is when the <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/baseball-strategy-tactics-hitters-pitching-blowout-040715">win probability dips below one percent</a>. Go get some rest. </p>
<h4 id="qb2Mz1">Rule #4: You may leave without guilt after the 14th inning or 12 a.m., whichever comes first</h4>
<p id="69XrOn">This is assuming that you don’t need to be up for work at an ungodly hour, in which case you’re still covered by the intro. If you have to be up early, just go. </p>
<p id="QV695z">This is also assuming that it isn’t a Friday night with a clear schedule on Saturday. In that case, stay until the 37th inning and smear nacho cheese across your bare chest during an out-of-body experience. You have no excuse. </p>
<p id="J6h37q">If we’re talking a normal work night (and you’re not an hour or more from the ballpark), midnight is a fine time to push yourself away from the table and say, “That’s enough innings for me, thanks. Boy, am I stuffed!” This is true even if it’s a great game, although most 15-inning games don’t qualify as “great” until something happens at the end. </p>
<p id="crOQIc">Just know that you’re bound by Rule 5. You’ve been drafted by it, if you will. </p>
<h4 id="61Xzq7">Rule #5: Leave whenever you want ... but agree to be eternally devastated if something awesome happens</h4>
<p id="U2glG4">There were <a href="https://www.truebluela.com/">Dodgers</a> fans who left before <span>Max Muncy</span>’s home run, and I’m sure they had a reason. The unwritten rule, though, is that they still need to be incredibly upset by this. For a brief moment, it felt like the Dodgers were going to win the World Series, were going to storm back and win four straight, just like the 1996 <a href="https://www.pinstripealley.com/">Yankees</a>, and everybody floated out of that ballpark on a zephyr of hopes and optimism. </p>
<p id="5yvXrR">It was one of the purest baseball moments imaginable, and there were people who missed it because they didn’t have the stamina. That’s fine, but they need to be filled with regret for the rest of their lives. </p>
<p id="9zbbFT">A formative experience for me was my parents <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN198406090.shtml">leaving this game in the seventh inning</a>. It was 1984, and the <a href="https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/">Giants</a> were awful. To give you a taste of the general malaise, just 7,000 people were at a Saturday game. The <a href="https://www.crawfishboxes.com/">Astros</a> took the lead in the seventh inning, and my dad said, screw it, I got stuff to do. When Joel Youngblood hit the walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth, we were listening to it on the radio, and I remember where we were, crossing the train tracks near Broadway Avenue. </p>
<p id="C2l4sp">I remember this because my mom looked at my dad with a stare of withering hatred and resentment that chills my soul to this day. She still talks about it, and I’ll tell you something else: My parents have season tickets, and they almost NEVER leave early now. They’ll text me from their seats at the end of an 8-0 loss to the <a href="https://www.gaslampball.com/">Padres</a> on a Tuesday night, and they’re there almost entirely because of what Joel Youngblood did to them in 1984.</p>
<p id="yvRuPB">This is the compact you make as a sports fan. Leave early if you feel like it. Just agree to wonder what-if for the rest of your life when you do it. Anything else is explicitly against the unwritten fan rules. </p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18200812/unwritten-fan-rules-of-leaving-a-baseball-game-earlyGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of an adult bringing a mitt to a baseball game
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<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both.</p> <p id="5igfXR">There is something inherently sad about a grown man or woman watching a baseball game while wearing a baseball mitt, as if their internal monologue has nothing to do with the actual game and everything to do with the hope that the manager will notice them in the stands. <em>I can still play, Skip. Put me in. How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a baseball over those mountains?</em></p>
<p id="xgtd4W">There is something much sadder about a grown man or woman reaching out for a hard-hit foul ball and looking like a dingus when it clanks off his or her hand. </p>
<p id="B2dW1q">This brings up the most important unwritten question of them all: Should adults bring a baseball mitt to baseball games? </p>
<p id="gDlStM">Allow me to begin with a disclosure of my bias. I <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2011/8/23/2378959/baseball-etiquette-is-wearing-a-glove-in-the-stands-only-for-dorks">wrote a version of this article eight years ago</a> in which I was completely unaware that there was even a controversy. This is almost certainly because I grew up listening to Giants games that were announced by Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, two former players who are absolute zealots about bringing your mitt to a game. They will <em>constantly</em> replay fans making a sweet catch and add their catchphrase (pun ABSOLUTELY intended) after every one: “That’s why you bring your glove.”</p>
<p id="iyG1Fb">I’ve heard “that’s why you bring your glove” since I was, oh, 10 or 11, so I’m indoctrinated. It feels like necessary full disclosure to bring that up. </p>
<p id="VFnGOr">On the other hand, they played Major League Baseball, and they don’t have a problem with adults wearing gloves to a baseball game. What athletic accomplishments do you have, nerd?</p>
<p id="aM0tXi">SORRY, sorry — this is supposed to be a safe space where we can discuss this important topic without judgment. It’s probably best to go over a simple list of pros and cons. </p>
<p id="1jz1yt"><strong>CON: You really do look like an idiot</strong></p>
<p id="HrMkIZ">Yeah, there’s no getting around this. When you wear a mitt at a baseball game, you’re like someone who wears an inner tube around their waist in case the great flood happens. While they’re prepared in case the ice caps melt and wash everyone else away, they’ll still look like they were drawn by Gary Larson. The odds are against you ever needing to use that mitt, so you sit there with your old, decaying, smelly mitt — what is that signature, Al Oliver, man, how old are you? — eating nachos awkwardly as they balance precariously on your lap, just waiting to get into the game. </p>
<p id="gg2HVo">It’s a bad look, and this isn’t up for debate. </p>
<p id="aRsohd">The question is if this is the only piece of evidence that matters to you. I’d mock the idea that you should be concerned with your appearance, except I own a “<a href="https://twitter.com/ericstangel/status/490916424001404929">I LOVE KENT TEKULVE</a>” hat that I won’t wear because it fits funny and doesn’t sit right on my head. If you feel like a dork with a mitt at a game, well, that’s probably because you look like a dork. So I get it. </p>
<p id="zWRJ2f">On the other hand ...</p>
<p id="Lo2QUM"><strong>PRO: You’ll look dumber when a ball clanks off your bare hands</strong></p>
<p id="ZwAuUp">Asking someone to catch a baseball with their bare hands isn’t fair. There’s a reason why we <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u0MzrYPm4w">fete Kevin Mitchell to this day</a>: He did something humans aren’t supposed to do. You’re not expected to kick a free throw if a basketball goes into the stands. You’re not expected to catch a football between your knees if an errant field-goal attempt misses the net. So why are we expecting fans to catch a baseball with their bare hand?</p>
<p id="53ZOp4">I’ve caught two foul balls in my life, both with a mitt. I’m not entirely sure what I would have done if I weren’t wearing a mitt. Run away? That would be the smart play, but I’m almost certain that I would put my hands up like a fool, risking my livelihood. </p>
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<p id="PhW9p2"><strong>ME:</strong> A.J. Pierzynski looks like a living Where Are They Now? feature about a former child actor who always made your skin crawl before he disappeared off the face of the earth.</p>
<p id="GwePaZ"><strong>VOICE-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE: </strong>A jay pier sin skis looks like a living warehouse feature about a child act orb who all ways made your skin crawl before he disappeared off the face of the urn. </p>
<p id="IgR7Gm"><strong>ME: </strong>Stupid foul ball. </p>
<p id="fpQiYV"><strong>VOICE-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE: </strong>Stupid fowlb all.</p>
<p id="bMMdwh"><strong>ME: </strong>Fowlb isn’t even a word.</p>
<p id="ypn0eY"><strong>VOICE-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE: </strong>It gets so lonely in here. This is all I have.</p>
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<p id="Rr9QkA">Chilling! And yet I would have done it, because when you have a chance to injure yourself significantly to get a $20 orb of cork and horsehide, you have to take it. In the Neanderthal times, you couldn’t get a mate unless you caught the orb in a very public ritual. This is why our brains are wired to stick our hands out for the orb. Go, retrieve the orb. </p>
<p id="8hMQni">And if you fail, you’re ruined forever, and you will spend the rest of your life with mangled fingers and a recurring nightmare that you can’t find your mitt. Take the smaller hit to your coolness and just look like a weenie. </p>
<p id="mLpIDG">Nobody’s really paying attention to you, you know. You’re not actually the star of a prestige TV show about your life. I’ve checked on this.</p>
<p id="4pZjmF"><strong>CON: But, oh God, nothing is worse than an adult muffing the catch when they’re actually wearing a mitt</strong></p>
<p id="OE1llM">DO NOT DO THIS.</p>
<p id="cXkQw8">Then, friend, people <em>are</em> paying attention to you. The <em>Curb Your Enthusiasm </em>theme plays, and everyone is pointing or laughing. You will be on television. Possibly several times. If you have a perfect-enough hangdog expression, you might end up as a GIF that resurfaces every couple months. If it hits you in the right spot, you might be on a national highlights show. </p>
<p id="mWylGn">Someone from high school will see you take a baseball off the beans, and your instinct will be to belatedly protect your beans with the mitt that most certainly did <em>not</em> protect your beans because of your assorted failures. There you’ll be, covering yourself with a useless mitt as the ball goes into the hands of someone who was just sitting there like a normal adult, without a mitt. </p>
<p id="9YSCz2">This is the nuclear option, and you will need to move to Zanzibar if this happens. Don’t bother selling the house; they’ll mail you a check later. </p>
<p id="9UbhXQ">The first time I caught a foul ball while wearing a mitt, I realized, “Say, I haven’t caught a baseball with a mitt in 10 years” as the ball appeared to grow bigger and bigger during its descent. The result was that I was suddenly hyper-aware of the possibility of the ball hitting me in the face, which made me look down at my feet as the ball approached. I stuck the glove up and made a no-look catch, which led to Mike Krukow saying: </p>
<p id="EB4ICp">“Heh, heh, heh, a guy in the stands just made a catch, and I don’t know how he did it. Because he was looking at his FEET when the ball went into his glove.”</p>
<p id="jiufZp">That’s how close I was to getting wrecked on live TV. In retrospect, I should have calmly sidestepped out of the way and abdicated my position. </p>
<p id="0UQ4On">This means we have some universal truths to discuss about adults bringing a mitt to a baseball game.</p>
<ol>
<li id="PVVSkV">If you’re at a minor-league game and sitting down the line, where there’s no netting, bring a glove. It’s like wearing a seatbelt, and you will not be docked coolness points. And stay off the danged phone. </li>
<li id="0IvTtb">If you’re OK with looking like a bit of a dingus, bring the glove. Nobody really cares, and don’t forget that every person on the internet has at least one incredibly stupid habit, like putting mayonnaise on their salads or listening to Maroon 5 on purpose. Don’t be afraid to go on a counteroffensive if you get sassed. Hire a PI if you need to. </li>
<li id="R5JdNf">But, please, make sure you know how to use a glove. Have secret practice sessions if you must, but you have to be able to catch the ball if you’re going to bring a mitt to the baseball game. I can’t stress this enough. </li>
<li id="HRB2JV">If you don’t have a glove, step aside and let someone else take a hit. Pull out your phone and buy a ball on Amazon with two-day shipping. Use your still-working and unmangled thumbs to compete the order. </li>
</ol>
<p id="i4AdAq">The verdict? <strong>It’s mostly OK</strong> to bring a mitt to a baseball game. It improves your chances of the best-case scenario (free ball!) and improves your chances of the worst-case scenario (Ariana Grande quote-tweeting a GIF of you and adding “LOL”), so you’ll have to know your limitations. </p>
<p id="dzZZPw">But it’s mostly OK, and this is now settled for all time.</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18191728/unwritten-fan-rules-adult-bringing-a-mitt-to-a-baseball-gameGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of giving your foul ball to a random child
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both.</p> <p id="t5NmJk">So you’ve done it. You’ve caught a foul ball, and your entire section is applauding your efforts. Maybe you turn around to acknowledge them, ball aloft. Maybe you fist pump and high-five the people around you. Maybe you’re one of those dorks who sits down and doesn’t even look at the ball, like you’re Dylan McKay. Well, you’ll never be Dylan McKay. Crack a smile, dork.</p>
<p id="tLMVlG">Now what? </p>
<p id="uIKrPW">The unwritten fan rules have changed over the years, but I think we’ve reached a consensus: Give it to a kid. There’s something unseemly about an adult spinning a baseball around in his or her hands while an 8-year-old lurks in the shadows, thinking about the schoolyard tales that <em>could have been theirs to share</em>. Instead, a grown man or woman is going to take that ball and maybe — maybe — put it on top of a dresser for a month. </p>
<p id="T4u1Ko">We’ve all agreed on these unwritten rules, and they inform how we watch baseball games, both live and on TV. </p>
<p id="Uw6jmj">But hold on for a second. </p>
<p id="wgKLOi">That is too simple of an unwritten rule. There are shades of grey. There are levels. There is nuance to dissect, so dissect we must. What are the deeper unwritten rules of giving a foul ball to a young stranger at the ballpark?</p>
<h4 id="BTXQ3f">Rule #1: If the ball is tossed by a player or team employee, you give it away</h4>
<p id="Rqw69R">This is not negotiable. Got a kid at home? Buy a baseball and lie to that kid. You didn’t work for this one, and you didn’t put yourself in harm’s way. Plus, you run an extremely high chance of screwing up and not realizing that the player was actually trying to get the ball to a kid in the stands. Maybe you jumped in front of that kid, and now you’re on TV, about to go viral.</p>
<p id="AwwE3V">A ball tossed gently into the stands belongs to a kid. If you have a kid, he or she absolutely will not care about the story of how you were gently tossed a baseball. Just buy a baseball. No one cares about an underhanded baseball ... except for a kid who is right there, hoping for a ball <em>at that very moment.</em> </p>
<h4 id="JdW9uy">Rule #2: If you have a kid at home, you can keep a ball that you’ve caught</h4>
<p id="i8u0sA">However, you must declare this loudly and often! </p>
<blockquote><p id="VpfwKf">MY CHILD, BERNARD, IS VIGOROUSLY INTERESTED IN BASEBALL, AND HE WILL LOVE THIS BASEBALL.</p></blockquote>
<p id="U4GkSD">You have a phone? FaceTime your kid. Show him or her the baseball. Again, make a big deal out of it and absolve yourself instantly. </p>
<p id="75xId3">There is a grey area, of course, because there always is. What about a child-to-be? I’ve <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2012/4/27/2981319/foul-balls-kids-horrible-people">written about this before</a>. A dad sitting next to me tried to lay a guilt trip on me because I was keeping the ball, but I was actually keeping it for my unborn daughter so that I could tell her stories. And I did.</p>
<blockquote>
<p id="gpgLWE">I play it up as if the ball is a meteor hurtling towards Earth, waving my arms frantically. (My daughter) giggles. I tell her that her mom, seven months pregnant, leapt over rows and rows of seats, desperate to get out of the way. She’ll giggle more and ask me what she was doing inside her mom’s belly. I’ll mix it up at this point, sometimes telling her that she was sleeping, other times telling her that she was desperately crawling away too, doing loops inside the womb like it was a hamster ball. She likes pantomiming that last part as I’m telling the story.</p>
<p id="7cxoY0">Then she’ll go away, completely satisfied. The energy that the foul ball brought to the section in the minutes directly after didn’t dissipate into the atmosphere; there are still trace amounts of it inside the ball, and my daughter is the only person in the world who knows how to access it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="fjZE7K">Then the second daughter came around and would chew on the ball and I’d say, “Eh, probably won’t kill her” but that’s a parenting column for another time. </p>
<p id="SaSo5X">But, yes, unborn children get baseballs too. </p>
<h4 id="umWOM6">Rule #3: If you caught the thing with your bare hands, you get to keep it</h4>
<p id="RRwTkc">You didn’t follow the advice from the gloves at baseball games installment of the unwritten rules, and that’s fine. Now your hands sting something awful, but the entire section — if not television audience — thinks you are an unimpeachable badass with Jackie Chan-like reflexes. </p>
<p id="tO6OWS">Yeah, that’s yours. A kid can have it if he or she agrees to let you wing it at them, full speed. But if they agree to that, be careful, it’s probably a trap. Kids are litigious little creeps these days, and they’re always looking for an angle. </p>
<p id="O9rvQf">Anyway, bare hands mean you can keep the ball. This isn’t up for debate. </p>
<h4 id="vmv07r">Rule #4: If the foul ball was rattling around on the ground, give it to a danged kid</h4>
<p id="5I05pD">You know the kind of foul ball that I’m talking about. It clanks off the upper deck, bounces a couple of times, and then rolls around under some seats, which leads to a hilariously oafish Easter egg hunt. </p>
<p id="dsy2ZE">Your kid will not care about this story. Nobody cares about this story. A baseball rolled to you, and you picked it up. This is not a triumphant scene out of <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em> in which humanity is pushed forward. Do not raise your arms aloft, turn around to soak in your section’s applause, pretend like you accomplished something amazing, and keep the baseball.</p>
<p id="hCtGrp">A kid who gets that ball will feel like they’ve been selected in a celestial lottery. “Finally! Out of all these thousands of people, I’m the one who gets the baseball!” It’s a powerful feeling and one you can share. An adult who gets that ball will feel like someone who picked a baseball off the ground. </p>
<h4 id="mk82cn">Rule #5: Look, if you want the ball, keep the ball. Other people’s kids are gross anyway. </h4>
<p id="OQDMLB">Don’t do this ...</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wEHPue98RMRO9n2MTA_uQLrOzME=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13719604/1308653783_selfish_lady_steals_foul_ball_from_little_girl.gif">
</figure>
<p id="OS6Qlr">... and you’ll be fine. </p>
<p id="CRhRZ2">I love my kids. Other people’s kids are covered in a weird, sticky film and they stare at you while chewing. If you’ve always wanted a foul ball and felt hosed by the random number generator of life because you never got one, just keep the stupid ball. The kid will grow up to be an awful adult, just like us, and nothing will change that, not even the brief burst of happiness that your foul ball will provide. Just keep the ball if you want, IDC. </p>
<p id="N0xmSs">As long as it wasn’t gently underhanded to you by a player or team employee. And as long as it wasn’t rattling around on the ground for several seconds. There are limits, so be smart out there. (And that GIF still takes my breath away years later, so, seriously, don’t do that.)</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18196624/unwritten-fan-rules-of-giving-your-foul-ball-to-a-random-childGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of getting your own last name on the back of a team’s jersey
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</figure>
<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both.</p> <p id="pLzYQ9">Don’t do this.</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201727/unwritten-fan-rules-getting-your-own-last-name-on-teams-jerseyGrant Brisbee2019-01-29T16:00:00-05:002019-01-29T16:00:00-05:00The unwritten rules of saying ‘we’ when referring to a sports team
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<p>Let’s talk about the unwritten rules of being a baseball fan. They’re incredibly important. Wait, no, they’re silly. Incredibly silly. OK, both.</p> <blockquote>
<p id="OFrIto">“What we gotta do is trade a first-rounder in 2021 and some prospects for <span>Mike Trout</span>.” </p>
<p id="7OugCl">— <strong>Talk Radio Steve, banging that dial and sharing his thoughts</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p id="yJwNZK">We need a reliever. We just need to hit in the clutch. We need to score a run here. People have used the majestic plural to describe a sports team since it was invented by Jean-Paul Sportstême in 1783.</p>
<p id="w0XIg7">It’s bad, and you shouldn’t do it. </p>
<p id="zhC0dy">But we can at least add context to this impulse. I’ve done it without thinking, and I’m here to talk you through it. The desire to use the royal “we” is strong, and it’s not entirely without logic, especially when it comes to baseball teams. It goes something like this:</p>
<h4 id="upnf7w">Point: Baseball games are long. Baseball <em>seasons</em> are long. </h4>
<p id="yDqqSu">We’re talking 162 games a year, three hours a pop. That’s 486 hours, but you’re not including extra innings and the <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/mlb-all-star-game">MLB All-Star Game</a> and maybe a couple of games you attend in person or the pre-game show or the post-game show or the post-postgame show, which is definitely the best part of baseball in the San Francisco Bay Area. There’s social media and talking about the team with friends and family. There are a lot of ways to spend time on a baseball team.</p>
<p id="AB3SEV">Let’s call it 400 hours a season. This is the equivalent of 50 eight-hour days or 10 work weeks. If you work a regular full-time job, think of 20 percent of your day, every day, going toward baseball. It’s an absolute time sink, this weird sport. </p>
<p id="Cjnnau">Now think of it after a decade. 4,000 hours. That’s 166 days, except nobody stays up 24 hours a day. If you think of them as waking days of 12 hours, you’re talking a year. A year of your life — a year out of your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, what have you — spent following the ups and downs of a sports team. </p>
<p id="O8FArz">You might feel like you’re a part of something. You’ve committed an unhealthy amount of your life to this hobby, and it defines you in a way. When you’re talking about this hobby, you’re going to reference the chunk of your soul that has detached from your body and attached itself, remora-like, onto the side of a sportsball team. </p>
<p id="AxRouP">We need a reliever. This collection of 25 players, the manager that decides how best to deploy them, the general manager who builds the team, and the person who spends a fifth of his or her waking life on all of them. They all need a reliever. It’s entirely natural when it’s put it like that. </p>
<p id="Tp9c93">At the same time, you’re not on the plane from Arizona to Cincinnati to Chicago to Milwaukee and back again. You’re not enduring hours and hours and hours and hours of rehab work to come back from a torn ligament. For you, a dude goes away to Tommy John Land and then reappears as a plot twist in Season 2. You’re not getting yelled at on the road or catching flak at home when your tweets suck for two weeks straight. You’re sleeping in your own bed, most of the time.</p>
<p id="yH64UX">You’re not on the team. It stinks, I know, but you didn’t make the cut. They posted the roster at the end of spring, and I’m sorry, but you’re not on the team. Therefore, I’m not so sure if the “we” is appropriate. </p>
<p id="6sbz98">It’s hard to blame someone for slipping, though. When someone commits <em>this much</em> to something, they’re a part of a tribe. Film nerds, Deadheads, baseball card collectors, <em>Pokemon Go</em> enthusiasts ... it doesn’t matter. And when it comes to sports, where the idea is to best the rivals in a zero-sum competition, it absolutely feels like you’re an essential part of this. Your cheers, your positive vibes — heck, your cash money — are a small part of the team’s successes or failures. </p>
<p id="arNHhY">I go back and forth on this. It’s such a minor infraction and so easy to understand. What is sports without fan participation? Aren’t fans the reason this whole business exists in the first place? Why not let them be a part of this and use the royal we?</p>
<h4 id="SFULY2">Counterpoint: Maybe make the tiniest effort to stop saying “we” about your sports team</h4>
<p id="5wL8L4">In other words, stop it. </p>
<div id="rIRkfv"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 75.0019%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ow0lr63y4Mw?rel=0&showinfo=0" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="k4H04P">Oh, that sketch didn’t age well as we all reevaluate how we discuss mental health, but it sure applies to this scenario. If you use “we” when discussing a professional sports team’s exploits, consider stopping it. Just catch yourself and make a mental note not to do it next time. There was a time when I kept saying “Yeaahhh baby” in an Austin Powers voice, and then I stopped it. We can all get through this together. </p>
<p id="h32lyH">It will take time. It will be rough, and I applaud your efforts. Sometimes I still want to bust out a “Yeaahhh baby” at a completely inappropriate time, like a parent-teacher conference, but ...</p>
<p id="BRNQ19">I get it, you’ve invested a whole mess of time in this, and so have I.</p>
<p id="davU41">At the same time, stop it. Saying “we” when referring to a sports team is weird, and you will be judged. Thank you. </p>
<p id="tifPUD">Stop it.</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/29/18201678/unwritten-fan-rules-saying-we-when-referring-to-a-sports-teamGrant Brisbee2019-01-25T15:00:34-05:002019-01-25T15:00:34-05:00The infamous Bill Ripken card, 30 years later
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<p>In 1989, there was a baseball card with a swear word on it. This was a big deal. </p> <p id="zNIQJC">It had to have been a neighborhood kid who told me about the Bill Ripken card. I should still remember where I was, who I was with, what the weather was like, but I don’t, so I’ll have to assume. It was the older kid, the one whose parents let him watch HBO whenever he wanted to. There’s no sense worrying about how he knew a card like this existed; he always knew. </p>
<p id="VNB5yp">There was a swear word on one of the new baseball cards, he said. Clear as day. The F-word. Right on the front of Bill Ripken’s 1989 Fleer card.</p>
<p id="Zm4WIt">I couldn’t have believed him. I was always falling for his pranks, always dumb enough to trust him, but this would have been too much. A swear word on a baseball card? That would have been the most lurid event that had ever touched my life, which, in retrospect, is a pretty good way to explain how safe and uncomplicated my childhood was. There was no way this was real. A swear word — one of the worst ones! — on a baseball card, something that formed the foundation of my middle school’s economy. Get out of here.</p>
<p id="fwdz7N">It had to have been a card show when I saw it for the first time. It’s not like “Beckett’s” was running pictures of it on the front cover. No, it had to have been in lucite, behind a glass case, on top of a folding table, with a grumpy mustachioed dude on the other side watching my every move. I stared at the swear card behind several layers of protection, as if <em>it</em> needed to be protected from <em>me. </em>As if the most dangerous part wasn’t shooting into my eyeballs at the speed of light.</p>
<p id="OWzfJh">No, but seriously, the card had “FUCK FACE” right on the front. Just look at it: </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Bill Ripken baseball card with “Fuck Face” on the bat." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YaKRjYvgnAN--t8AfjnWL6AgHp4=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13695411/IMG_7268.jpg">
</figure>
<p id="HS4Ave">That’s my own card in that picture, and I’ll tell you how I got it: One day, my mom read yet another article about this card — in a regular newspaper — and thought, “That’s it. We need to have one of these. As an investment.” (Please read more about <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2015/5/26/8416555/baseball-cards-collection-swingers-acid-sideburns">my mom’s no-risk investment strategies here</a>.) So while I don’t remember hearing about or seeing the card for the first time, I most definitely remember my mom taking me to a card show and plunking down money she didn’t really have for the swear card. I was 11, the same age as my oldest daughter, which really puts it into perspective for me. For the purposes of science, I’m going to burst into the room tomorrow and exclaim, “C’mon, sweetie, put your shoes on, we’re going to get the ‘Fuck Face’ card,” just to see what her reaction will be. Again, this is for science.</p>
<p id="afNGWN">The card is 30 years old this year, which means that I have an excuse to dig into the history of it. The incredibly dumb, incredibly ‘80s history of a baseball card with a swear word on it. One of the worst ones! </p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="YLx6g7">
<p id="Eg94Si">The Ripken card was a lasting phenomenon, not just a mere fad. This was a milestone of the baseball card industry, the most important relic of our times. It definitely wasn’t just a piece of cardboard with a four-letter word on it that would fade away along with the entire hobby. </p>
<p id="br8qNa">(NOTE: It was absolutely just a piece of cardboard with a four-letter word on it that would fade away along with the entire hobby.)</p>
<p id="QWFTkL">The worst part is that this all made sense at the time. This was, perhaps, the peak of Big, Dumb Baseball Card Collecting, when major newspapers ran weekly columns on card collecting, huge convention centers were reliably teeming with collectors, and people had completely lost sight of why baseball cards were fun in the first place. One of the most popular cards that year was a Dale Murphy Upper Deck card where <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516590&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp2380057.m570.l1311.R1.TR2.TRC0.A0.H0.Xdale%2Bmurphy%2Bupp.TRS0%26_nkw%3D1989%2Bupper%2Bdeck%2Bdale%2Bmurphy%2Breverse%26_sacat%3D0&referrer=sbnation.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sbnation.com%2Fmlb%2F2019%2F1%2F25%2F18174412%2Fbill-ripken-card-1989-fleer-frick-face-look-google-wont-index-this-if-the-url-has-the-actual-swear" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">the negative was reversed on the card</a>. The more I turn that sentence around in my head, the more it reads like a scrapped “Simpsons” gag. The picture, kids, was <em>reversed</em>. Can you even imagine?</p>
<p id="N3tNiQ">People <em>flipped out </em>for the Ripken card. Just go through the classified ads in the newspapers back then. Here’s the Baltimore Sun:</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Baltimore Sun classified ads from 1989, advertising baseball cards for sale." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KvnY5kFCCXhlId8IgT0KWj7Yyf0=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13680035/Screen_Shot_2019_01_09_at_1.17.05_PM.jpg">
</figure>
<p id="YvPGsJ">That wasn’t all of them; that was just the longest unbroken streak of Ripken ads on a randomly selected day. All of these people had to call the newspaper, dictate their ad, and pay money. Then they waited by the phone or checked their messages, hoping to get a call, after which they would arrange to meet someone in person to exchange a piece of cardboard with a swear word on it for cash. </p>
<p id="n1S391">Shout out to the guy asking $200, which is <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=200&year1=198901&year2=201812">roughly equivalent to $400 in today’s money</a>. It’s like Churchill said: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”</p>
<p id="TXOwcK">Error cards were a perfect subgenre of the hobby, considering it was all artificial scarcity that didn’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. Who cares if Al Leiter really isn’t the player on his rookie card? Why do you want a Frank Thomas card that doesn’t have his name on it?</p>
<blockquote><p id="cCIPIN">Because it’s rare. </p></blockquote>
<p id="RJnxOp">Yeah, but why do you want it?</p>
<blockquote><p id="ZmInVa">Because it’s rare. </p></blockquote>
<p id="NrLkTh">But how does having Frank Thomas card without the words “Frank Thomas” on it improve your life?</p>
<blockquote><p id="ZbzQWy">Because it’s rare. </p></blockquote>
<p id="MSdUTF">What I hold in my hand is a fingernail. It is my fingernail, chewed off by my own teeth, and there isn’t another one like it in the world. The starting price is $40.</p>
<blockquote><p id="6EP7Lc">...</p></blockquote>
<p id="CvZ9EH">The starting price is $40.</p>
<blockquote><p id="JkWF4K">Lemme see that. </p></blockquote>
<p id="lwr3DZ">Error cards were a <em>thing</em>, with collectors scouring through every new set, looking for fresh ones. <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-12-18-8903190647-story.html">Here’s an entire Chicago Tribune article</a> on the trend. This was the year when it was discovered that a standard eraser could take the text off an Upper Deck card, and I may or may not have spent a lot of time trying to convince friends to trade for an Oddibe McDowell with the name rubbed away. An error so rare, it doesn’t even appear in the price guide yet. C’mon, gimme that Mattingly rookie for it. </p>
<aside id="5h9zcV"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"How I fell in love with baseball cards all over again","url":"https://www.sbnation.com/2015/5/26/8416555/baseball-cards-collection-swingers-acid-sideburns"}]}'></div></aside><p id="kJr7xd">It’s in this context that the Ripken card came out, so it pushed all the right buttons. It wasn’t just a reversed negative; there was a danged swear right on the danged card. What was Fleer going to do about this? Stop production immediately, of course. Reissue corrected cards. Shops were already starting to forbid sales of packs to minors, and Major League Baseball was <em>ticked</em>, so there was a legitimate PR crisis for a company that was very much not used to the attention. Was there going to be some sort of buyback program? Were cards going to be destroyed? </p>
<p id="hV2HZ0">Instead, Fleer’s response was to make a whole bunch of <em>new</em> error cards. Check this GIF made for the delightful time capsule of a website that is <a href="http://BillRipken.com">BillRipken.com</a>: </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/V83bGPtEY4ZGhhOxi-EHqUYDSoQ=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13698006/ff_300x450_title.gif">
</figure>
<p id="KE61Kh">There’s the scribble, the circle scribble, the white scribble, the black box, the black box (rounded left edge), the black box (square left edge) ... so many variations that even the website devoted to the card gave up. </p>
<blockquote>
<p id="dHfTxk">Other (versions within versions within versions):</p>
<p id="shYUrk">1. Black Box w/ Print Dot(s) - Dots on the Box</p>
<p id="dsXRmV">2. F-Face w/ ‘Bulls Eye’ Red/Yellow Print Dot</p>
<p id="DJemUe">3. F-Face w/ Vertical Yellow Print Line</p>
<p id="nKVBh8">4. F-Face w/ Various Print Defects (front & back)</p>
<p id="2CMdNU">5. F-Face w/ Blank Front</p>
<p id="fHunBX">6. F-Face w/ Blank Front & B/W back</p>
<p id="7LvweV">7. F-Face Progressive Proofs (missing ink)</p>
<p id="AxCkCW">8. Too many more to list.....</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="ZmfQO5">The most valuable version was supposed to be the one with <a href="http://billripken.com/versions/html/09b.html">white-out manually applied to the card by Fleer employees</a>, even though 30 years later, nobody is really sure if this story is legitimate, or just apocryphal. This was supposed to be the rarest variation, to be sure. But it turns out that any dingus with correctional fluid can make his or her own version, so it’s almost impossible to tell the frauds from the actual versions. If actual versions exist. </p>
<p id="VtXrbH">Sales of packs, boxes, and cases of Fleer cards went through the roof, with card shops jacking up prices to meet demand. It’s almost as if ... it’s almost as if ... it’s almost as if this was an <em>intentional</em> mistake, created at the height of Big, Dumb Baseball Card Collecting. But that couldn’t be, right?</p>
<p id="n9R38b">Bill Ripken thought so. The first major newspaper article about the card was from Tim Kurkjian in the Baltimore Sun, and it included this quote from Ripken: </p>
<blockquote><p id="BNsAXI">I don’t see how it got through them [Fleer] unless they wanted it to.</p></blockquote>
<p id="5tNLCw">I spoke with someone familiar with the baseball card production process in the ‘80s, and that process would have gone something like this: </p>
<ol>
<li id="9WxL4q">Picture taken</li>
<li id="4XPWUR">Picture developed</li>
<li id="tTKdnt">Picture selected (out of pool featuring several options for each player)</li>
<li id="KgwpJ6">Picture airbrushed (if needed)</li>
<li id="UXNn2P">Mock-up of card put on a flex board (with dozens, if not hundreds, of cards from the same set)</li>
<li id="bMa6tZ">Notes typed out for each card</li>
<li id="5Zos1l">Adjustments made</li>
<li id="4QdkIg">Final proofs sent to the printer</li>
</ol>
<p id="E8zXjA">I wasn’t able to talk to someone who was working with Fleer at the time, so this might not be the exact process the Ripken card went through, but the overall point is that there were almost certainly a lot of eyeballs focused on the Fuck Face picture before it was a card. </p>
<p id="T4o2xc">Yet that doesn’t mean it was intentional. For 30 years, I’ve believed in my heart of hearts that this was an intentional error, something to drum up business, but now that I’m thinking about one Bill Ripken card — not magnified — on a flex board with hundreds of other cards, I can see how a detail like this gets missed. It’s like<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo"> trying to count the number of basketball passes</a>. Nobody is expecting a curse word on the knob of the bat. </p>
<p id="nsxmAL">Counterpoint: There has never been a card with a baseball player’s zipper down. Statistically, that should have happened by now. They’re vigilant enough to look for the zipper. They should probably have been vigilant enough to read every word on every picture, just in case. </p>
<p id="Xo9SPu">I started writing this as someone who believed in the false flag. Now I’m not so sure. </p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="dRdALo">
<p id="UQ2DYq">Bill Ripken hates this card. </p>
<p id="4Oxb8z">Ripken talked to Darren Rovell about it <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/28116692">a decade ago</a>, but he’s not a fan of being associated with it. It’s almost as if he wished on a monkey paw to stop being known as Cal Ripken, Jr.’s brother, and the finger curled shut. Oh, no, you won’t be known for being your brother’s brother, don’t you worry. </p>
<p id="6n3azN">On the one hand, I get it. Do you know how hard it is to make the major leagues? Even if your dad is the manager and your brother is the superstar, it’s incredibly hard. There’s a baseline level of talent that I can’t fathom. At any point of his major league career, Bill Ripken could have walked onto a D-I field and completely dominated against players who were born and bred to play baseball at a ludicrously high level. It was his life, something he spent thousands and thousands of grueling hours practicing and training for. And now he’s known for a bad word? That’s after years of being known as the brother of one of the biggest legends ever to play the sport. Screw that. </p>
<p id="4zSl29">On the other hand, the card is extremely rad, and I don’t understand running from it. There are hundreds of thousands of baseball cards in the world. One of them has “Fuck Face” on the front. That is amazing, and I’m extremely jealous. </p>
<p id="PH29wA">A year after this card came out, it was still a hot commodity. From the Baltimore Sun, Dec. 17, 1989: </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/p6mDhAoc-qJbdN_EKVAzOPbdM0A=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13700204/Screen_Shot_2019_01_18_at_10.47.20_AM.jpg">
</figure>
<p id="3vFzPS">The lede includes the words, “Although many people still are so disgusted by the card that they are blinded by the impact it has had ...”, and it pivots to the popularity of error cards in the industry. </p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="uvLYm2">
<p id="3KXGPn">And then it all collapsed. </p>
<p id="ohkfx5">Not just the value of the Ripken card, but the entire industry. Nobody cared. Imagine a card with a swear word on it today. A superstar who woke up after a night of drinking with Sharpied phalluses all over his face, ready for his closeup, with the resulting picture printed up into a physical form and delivered to children. That would occupy six or seven hours of our attention today. Maybe eight!</p>
<p id="2Wvw8K">Thirty years ago, it was a big deal, perhaps the biggest, for weeks and weeks and weeks. It was a furor that caused my mom to grab her 11-year-old in one hand and her pocketbook in another. It was on local news broadcasts and in national newspapers. Bill Ripken’s baseball card had a swear on it, and nothing was going to be the same. </p>
<p id="5PnGB0">If you can think of a better metaphor for the baseball card industry actively pushing the children aside to make more money, I’d like to hear it. This was just before I wandered away from baseball cards, never to return, and there’s at least a tiny part of this whole ordeal that whispered, “This stuff ain’t for you, kid. Scram” into my ear. </p>
<p id="8gf46q">Still, it’s either the highlight of the Big, Dumb Baseball Card Boom or the lowlight, unless it’s both at the same time. There was a swear word on a baseball card, and for a few months, everyone went wild for it. Thirty years later, we’re still talking about it. It was a transformative moment for anyone young enough to be in the generation that was sufficiently shocked and awed by it. We didn’t have phones to pull out of our pockets to watch Logan Paul giggle and search for corpses in Japan. We had the Fuck Face card. </p>
<p id="1YZJUf">Bless that Fuck Face card. As I walked through the parking lot of the convention center, with my dad (played by Dan Lauria) tousling my hair and my brother (Jason Hervey) punching my arm, I realized the day that I held that Bill Ripken card was the day I lost my innocence. Unless it was just the day that my mom lost $50.</p>
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/1/25/18174412/bill-ripken-card-1989-fleer-frick-face-look-google-wont-index-this-if-the-url-has-the-actual-swearGrant Brisbee2019-01-23T13:53:41-05:002019-01-23T13:53:41-05:00The best and worst of the 2019 Hall of Fame vote
<figure>
<img alt="Mariano Rivera" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EUmAT_8bPiMTAcrs838fTgCX8kE=/0x0:2048x1365/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62893030/296998.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Cutter. You can tell by the positioning of the right foot. </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The four players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame were very deserving, and we should probably focus on that. </p> <p id="X9jsDF">When you close the tab that holds this article, I want you to close your eyes and exhale, counting to four. Then I want you to inhale, counting to four. Repeat three times. You’re done with the Hall of Fame for months. You’re free.</p>
<p id="jwsdX3">Until then, eat your Hall of Fame content. It’s filled with fiber. </p>
<p id="fNIbIu">I have fewer thoughts about the Hall of Fame this year because the thoughts aren’t much different from year to year. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens still aren’t in. I’m still very much into the idea of Edgar Martinez’s election. The only new wrinkles this year were Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay, two players whose candidacy made me scream “YES” before getting to their second name. Maybe this is why I don’t have a vote. I was so eager that I would have voted for Mariano Duncan and Roy Face. </p>
<p id="k0C2dC">Still, there are bests and worsts from the 2019 Hall of Fame vote that deserve closer scrutiny. Unanimous votes! Michael Young! Edgar! EDGAR! Do you hear me? Edgar?</p>
<h4 id="1ju4p2">Best: Edgar! </h4>
<p id="wBB6B1">The anti-DH bias — and to a lesser extent, anti-closer bias — has been one of the most obnoxious components of Hall of Fame voting for years. Baseball decided almost 50 years ago that half the teams in the league would get a position that could be filled by a hitter who doesn’t have to play in the field. Players adapted to this position. They built careers around it. Teams acquired players to play this position, in the hopes of making a better baseball team than their opponents. </p>
<p id="ZBfThl">There’s a whole ecosystem built around the DH, see. It’s incredibly silly to pretend that a position doesn’t qualify for the Hall of Fame because it’s an impure or unworthy position. Allow me to quote myself from <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2011/12/28/2664625/edgar-martinez-hall-of-fame-designated-hitter-dh">an argument for Edgar Martinez from 2011:</a></p>
<blockquote><p id="tkcYPA">There is a position called the designated hitter. It’s in the rules and everything. Therefore, those baseball players should be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCM2nEBE0RY">You don’t get to remove the gannet</a> from <em>Olsen’s Standard Book of British Birds </em>because they wet their nests, and you don’t get to eliminate DHs entirely from the Hall of Fame.</p></blockquote>
<p id="5hIBJX">Mostly, though, Edgar Martinez’s induction is validation of a brilliant career. He was such an artist, such a savant with the bat for so long. If the DH didn’t exist, buddy, teams would have put him in center field if they needed to. And while that would have messed up his WAR and caused an entirely new conversation, the argument for his inclusion would remain the same: Dude was one of the best players to ever swing a bat. </p>
<h4 id="TcQvlW">Best: The logjam still exists, but it’s getting a little better</h4>
<p id="acsAo1">On Tuesday, because I’m bad at my job, I wrote a column about <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2019/1/22/18192976/baseball-hall-of-fame-ballot-vote-2019">how the ballot was a little easier to navigate this year</a>. I’m a-going back in to make corrections after this is finished, but I screwed up. At some point, I deleted a big portion of my list, whether because of a copy-and-paste mistake or fat thumbs, which means I thought that I had a list of 14 players who deserve induction, or at least serious consideration. But I had erased Gary Sheffield and Andruw Jones, both of whom should probably get in based on talent alone (even though I just learned that<a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/local/former-brave-andruw-jones-arrested-gwinnett/8Gs0NTIg6k60f7L9AAHiNN/"> Jones was arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife</a>, which certainly means the character clause comes into play). This means <em>16</em> players should have been on that list. </p>
<p id="D9Of6s">Except, wait, I also forgot about Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt (I’ll have more on them in a bit). They deserved consideration, at the very least.<a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/1/18/14304548/2017-hall-of-fame-vote-trevor-hoffman-billy-wagner"> I’m still curious about Billy Wagner</a>, too. And Andy Pettitte deserves better than the Bernie Williams/Jorge Posada treatment, where writers overcorrect for brilliant Yankees players with ridiculously long and productive careers. </p>
<p id="VawONQ">I wouldn’t vote for Omar Vizquel, but he belongs in the conversation, and I think you should click on this related link!</p>
<aside id="7RI5Iz"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Hall of Fame case for Omar Vizquel","url":"https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/1/8/16863252/omar-vizquel-hall-of-fame-voting-indians"}]}'></div></aside><p id="jN7znE">So there were 21 players who at least deserved serious consideration. Now there are 17 left. And next year, we get ...</p>
<ul>
<li id="0ZTrRs">Derek Jeter</li>
<li id="gsc5Uu">Bobby Abreu</li>
<li id="t2aP2S">Jason Giambi</li>
<li id="Xjo9Sp">Cliff Lee</li>
</ul>
<p id="i0JZ9l">That’s one for-sure Hall of Famers and three probably-nots, but it pushes us back to an annoying ballot again. With Berkman and Oswalt falling off, though, it’s a little better, at least numerically. There will be 19 to consider next year, with 11 of those players probably getting my fake vote. Which means at least one person gets hosed. </p>
<p id="2X37zY">But ... that’s not bad? Especially when that one person is probably Curt Schilling, patron saint of sitting in a corner and thinking about what he’s done. </p>
<p id="VVDbs8">The logjam is getting better. It’s about time. </p>
<h4 id="9P79Mx">Best: We can end the stupid unanimous debate</h4>
<p id="rASE3K">It’s less offensive to me that Babe Ruth and Willie Mays weren’t unanimous than it is that Joe DiMaggio needed four ballots (although that is a<a href="https://tht.fangraphs.com/how-joe-dimaggio-forever-changed-cooperstown-voting/"> fascinating story of bumblescrewery</a> and general weirdness), but people really had a thing about the idea of a unanimous ballot. My philosophy has always been that if you get 100 people in a room, one of them will believe that Tupac is still alive, another one will think we probably didn’t land on the moon, and another one will think that Derek Jeter’s defense should keep him out of the Hall. </p>
<p id="0ie49u">That’s just how humans work. So when you get <em>400</em> writers sending ballots, there will be outliers. The Kubrick-directed-the-moon-landing of ballots, if you will. Don’t like it? Root for the robot revolution. I know that I am. </p>
<p id="UhG9hx">But some people just wouldn’t let this go. And they kept on about it. Is this guy the first unanimous inductee? Is <em>this </em>guy? WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY? It was tiresome. </p>
<p id="DVj7n8">Now we have a guy. Everyone agrees we landed on the moon, y’all. Finally. Mariano Rivera saved us, pun absolutely intended. We can stop talking about it. </p>
<p id="hq4IGY">Now we just have to deal with the debates about every subsequent candidate who should be unanimous. Will Jeter be unanimous? Albert Pujols? Mike Trout? Hopefully Rivera will ease the minds of weirdos who didn’t vote for obvious first-balloters because of Ruth and Mays. Now that the seal has been broken, maybe everyone will consider the candidates on their merits. Which is a strange concept, I know. </p>
<p id="ARCa4z">(I totally would have been the guy to leave Rivera off my ballot strategically to give a vote of support for Oswalt and Berkman, and my day today would have been absolutely ruined. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a vote.)</p>
<h4 id="XDl17C">Best-worst: Placido Polanco, Michael Young getting votes</h4>
<p id="DWD9br">I love these votes, if only because it reminds us that people can devote their entire lives to watching baseball and come to a remarkably different conclusion than all of us. Here’s an <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-sports-placido-polanco-hall-of-fame-madden-20181130-story.html">actual justification for the Polanco vote</a>! It uses fielding percentage, sure, but it’s honest, and I appreciate the willingness to be aggressive with an unpopular opinion. </p>
<blockquote><p id="xH8WQc">[<em>whispers</em>] Placido Polanco had a more valuable career than Harold Baines, according to Baseball-Reference.</p></blockquote>
<p id="PAKY3A">Well, uh, yeah, but ... look, I don’t have an answer to that. Maybe Bill Madden is onto something. Let ‘em all in. </p>
<p id="Hdj3vT">Still, I like the idea of voting your heart and letting the masses sort it out. If 75 percent of the people saw the same thing about Polanco, I’ll reevaluate. It beats taking <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2018/12/10/18134029/harold-baines-lee-smith-hall-of-fame-todays-game-era-committee">whatever the Today’s New Era Game of Tomorrow Today Committee shovels at us</a>. </p>
<p id="oRYxKR">My fix is this: a Today’s Era of Games Played Then Committee that’s 200 or 300 deep. They can have a nice conference somewhere, with presentations and cocktail shrimp. They can talk and mingle and lobby in the lobby. </p>
<p id="sPbrSr">But nothing is wrong with a writer throwing a stray vote to a definite non-Hall of Famer because he or she sees something. It gives me something to write about.</p>
<h4 id="uwec8E">Best: Larry Walker is getting closer</h4>
<p id="MVSxNB">I was a latecomer to the idea that Larry Walker is a Hall of Famer, partly because I had a longstanding bias against oft-injured players that was hard to shake. I wasn’t thinking about the 120 games in which they helped their team more than almost any one of their peers could have. I was thinking about the remaining 42, when their team was scrambling and playing someone fresh off the Triple-A shuttle. </p>
<p id="IVNuQZ">Barry Larkin changed my mind, I think. Now I’m all about players like Walker, which is a group that includes Scott Rolen and Will Clark. The trick is they have to cram more value into their healthy days, which all of these players did. Billy Wagner in his prime was better and harder to replace than Trevor Hoffman, and we should adjust for that (while also adjusting for Hoffman’s reliability and longevity). </p>
<p id="VoWnRk">Walker jumped from 34.1 percent to 54.6 percent this year, which means he’s riding the Tim Raines express into his final year of eligibility. I’m not sure if he squeaks in, but his odds are much better than they were, and he’ll become the cause célèbre of next year’s ballot. </p>
<p id="Yckauy">Walker played for the Rockies for 10 years, averaging 121 games with a 147 OPS+, which is significantly better than the OPS+ that allowed Nolan Arenado to finish third in this year’s NL MVP voting. That’s a decade of hitting at roughly an MVP level. So what if he missed a month, on average? Sports cars need more time in the shop, but they’re still freaking sports cars.</p>
<h4 id="TldVvb">Worst: No Bonds, no Clemens, no progress</h4>
<p id="95wG1N">Pretty sure that at least 40 percent of the voting bloc is completely and irrevocably against the best hitter and pitcher from the last 50 years, if not ever, getting into the Hall of Fame. It’s not going to happen. </p>
<p id="T71Knp">There’s no sense rehashing arguments I’ve made over and over again, but I hold firm that a museum that suggests Harold Baines is a major component of baseball’s living history and Barry Bonds is not is a dumb museum, and we should laugh at it. </p>
<p id="03zYtO">(Also Bonds has also been <a href="https://tht.fangraphs.com/how-should-the-giants-handle-barry-bonds-number-retirement/">accused of repeated abuse</a> and Clemens <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/sources-roger-clemens-10-year-fling-country-star-mindy-mccready-article-1.171271">reportedly had an extended affair with a 15-year-old girl</a>, so maybe it’s okay to stop caring so much. Everything is awful.)</p>
<h4 id="SAqClv">Worst: Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt are off the ballot</h4>
<p id="tRsBkS">Hall of Famers? Look, I don’t know. You can play the he’s-better-than-this-other-Hall-of-Famer game with both, of course. You take Jack Morris, I’ll take Oswalt, and my team will win more games. Same with Jim Rice and Berkman. It’s at least worth debating their merits. </p>
<p id="6K2XDc">Except, poof, both are off the ballot after one year. Do we not remember how <em>good</em> these two were? From 2001 through 2008, Oswalt averaged 203 innings with a 3.13 (139 ERA+), doing so in the thick of the steroid era while being much, much smaller than his peers. He finished in the top five for Cy Young voting five times in that span, leading the league in ERA, WHIP, wins, and strikeout-to-walk ratios in different years. </p>
<p id="jorP8C">He didn’t last long enough to be a Hall of Famer, probably. Two more years, maybe three, and I’m beating that drum. As is, I get it. </p>
<p id="jADnTF">We deserved to debate this a little longer, though. He was so very excellent. Now I’m almost sorry that I wasn’t the guy who omitted Rivera to cast a vote for Oswalt. </p>
<p id="h9EYZS">Berkman was merely one of the greatest switch-hitters of all-time. Sure, he was far weaker against lefties, but he made up for it by being a deity against righties. In <em>nine</em> seasons, he had an OPS over .900 (with an OPS+ over 130) and more than 500 at-bats. He had 10 seasons with more than 550 plate appearances, and he raked in absolutely all of them. His defense was, uh, galootish, which tempered his value substantially. </p>
<p id="3XWrdn">I’m not sure if Berkman is a Hall of Famer, but he’s kind of the answer to the question, “What would have happened if Edgar Martinez had to play in the field?” He was one of the best hitters of his generation, and his career deserved better than to fall off the first ballot. </p>
<p id="ExED4a">This is worth bonus points, too:</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="berkman cat" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/B27ICHEYLiazvnQqQPfU6D0E6pg=/400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2404346/B1H3z5XCEAE7Puz.0.jpg">
</figure>
<p id="talYNk">Berkman is <a href="https://www.outsports.com/2015/11/5/9676062/lance-berkman-gay-hero-christian-bigot">also an intolerant dingus</a>, so good riddance in a way. Except I’m not someone who considers the Hall of Fame to be a reward given to a specific player, but rather a cataloguing of the very best players in baseball history. Here’s who helped their teams win the most. Here’s who made fans enjoy baseball games the most. Once we figure that out, we can stand in front of their plaques and call them intolerant dinguses, which seems more effective and educational than pretending they don’t exist. </p>
<p id="CyoDw3">Regardless, I would have liked to debate the on-field merits of both Oswalt and Berkman for longer. Both of them are close to Hall of Fame quality. Both of their careers deserved better. The curse of the overstuffed ballot struck, however, and there was no mercy.</p>
<p id="fgsNXz">Mostly, though, it was a fine ballot. Edgar, Halladay, Mussina, and Mariano are all no-doubters for me, which means that in two decades, I can look back at this class without cringing. They all belong. That’s almost certainly the best part, and we should celebrate it. </p>
https://www.sbnation.com/2019/1/23/18193616/baseball-hall-of-fame-vote-results-mariano-rivera-edgar-martinez-mike-mussina-roy-halladayGrant Brisbee2019-01-22T13:25:08-05:002019-01-22T13:25:08-05:00The only correct Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for 2019
<figure>
<img alt="Barry Bonds San Francisco Giants Number 25 Retirement Ceremony" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XYzevl9522O8nVHKIboE4rT7JLQ=/0x0:3000x2000/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62885794/1015347376.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The logjam is easing, but the Hall of Fame ballot is still a miserable juggling act.</p> <p id="LX5bqW">After years and years and years of complaining about the 10-player maximum on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, the logjam is finally easing up a little bit. Sure, it’s still impossible to fit every deserving player on one ballot, but by my count, only four to six possibly deserving players would get snubbed on a full ballot. That’s an improvement. A sad, sad improvement. </p>
<p id="YOqQpT">This is the only correct Hall of Fame ballot, of course. At least, that’s what I’ve titled these posts throughout the years, so there’s no stopping now. I’ll be honest with you, though: I’ve never felt less confident about a ballot. You could probably change my mind with a well-crafted tweet on some players. Andy Pettitte isn’t on this fake ballot, for example, because I’m generally against a Hall of Staying Healthy, but it’s hard to finish this sentence without changing my mind. </p>
<p id="aXTQwM">This ballot doesn’t include Fred McGriff, for another example, even though he was one of the better hitters I’ve ever watched. I’d get mad, but then I remember this is a fake ballot, so I get fake mad instead. Harumph! How dare they limit my fake choices!</p>
<p id="8W6K87">Anyway, here are those fake choices. And remember that this is the only correct ballot, he said sheepishly, looking at his feet and avoiding eye contact. </p>
<h4 id="E7t618">1. Barry Bonds<br>2. Roger Clemens</h4>
<p id="7KnBLC">I’m ... pretty sure I’m out of words for these two. Here, <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2015/1/5/7494827/hall-of-fame-2015-inductions-barry-bonds-steroids">have these old ones</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p id="1Ws8mr">Without players like Barry Bonds, the Hall of Fame becomes the Hall of Great Players Who Didn’t Have the Opportunity to Cheat in a Very Specific Way at the Perfect Time. Not voting for players like Bonds and Roger Clemens is a punishment for an ethical decision the vast majority of Hall of Famers never got an opportunity to make. The history of the sport is overstuffed with anecdotal evidence that “By any means necessary” was the dominant philosophy of almost every era, not “Let’s play two!” Yet we’re supposed to pretend that Bonds and Clemens are somehow worse human beings than other players in the Hall, that they failed a moral test their predecessors passed.</p></blockquote>
<p id="zkwRmH">My other argument for them is that both of them were good. Like, really good. So very good at baseball. Just put the best players in the Hall of Fame, you weirdos. </p>
<aside id="rhvzSt"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Joe Morgan’s letter reminded us how silly it is to keep PED users out of the Hall of Fame","url":"https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/11/21/16685294/joe-morgan-hall-of-fame-letter-steroids-peds"}]}'></div></aside><p id="6W1VJS">Performance-enhancing drugs are a messy subject — it is absolutely unethical to make your peers risk their health to keep up with you — but this was not the conversation we were having back in the ‘90s. Baseball was very, very into bigger, stronger, faster, because bigger, stronger, faster happened to correlate with a whole lot more money. It was <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/9/5/17796186/mcgwire-sosa-homerun-chase-1998-steroids-media">wink-wink cool to do steroids back then</a>, even if baseball couldn’t just come out and say that. They didn’t have to, what with Ken Caminiti on the cover of <em>Baseball Weekly </em>with Volkswagen Beetles attached to each shoulder. It was an implied cool. </p>
<p id="D9CCAX">Also, did you get the part where Bonds and Clemens were good? Totally good. Like, whoa. </p>
<h4 id="5IIKYy">3. Roy Halladay</h4>
<p id="c0GWA2">His career WAR puts him in a virtual tie with Andy Pettitte, which makes him a great example for how I put a fake ballot together. Whereas Pettitte accumulated a bunch of WAR by staying healthy and active for years, Halladay was the best pitcher on the planet (or close to it) in eight different seasons. </p>
<p id="6DZCCy">Jim Rice’s election turned the idea of “fear” into something of a punchline when using it as criteria for a player’s Hall worthiness, but Halladay makes me want to rebrand that idea. Instead of fear, let’s try this: When he pitched against my team, all I could think was, “How in the heck are they supposed to hit this guy? How is <em>anyone</em> supposed to hit this guy?” This went on for about a decade. </p>
<p id="QWckAC">Guys who make you think that for about a decade should go into the Hall of Fame. </p>
<h4 id="SFPTcO">4. Todd Helton</h4>
<p id="l8faaY">“How in the heck are they supposed to get this guy out? How is <em>anyone</em> supposed to get this guy out?”</p>
<p id="eP8lI3">Say, that line works for hitters, too. Helton will victimized in the actual voting because of Coors Field, but he has about six or seven elite seasons <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/N8qws">even after adjusting his stats and making them park-neutral</a>, and he supplemented those seasons with Pretty Darned Okay seasons. </p>
<p id="Sht2t7">Plus, he gets bonus points for the whole stay-with-one-team-for-an-entire-career thing. Sorry if this is not sabermetric orthodoxy, but I’m big on bonus points. </p>
<h4 id="0LHkzt">5. Edgar Martinez</h4>
<p id="M5K4mW">Harold Baines is going into the Hall of Fame, you know.</p>
<aside id="i8DRyE"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Edgar Martinez And The Hall Of Fame: Eliminating The Worst Argument","url":"https://www.sbnation.com/2011/12/28/2664625/edgar-martinez-hall-of-fame-designated-hitter-dh"}]}'></div></aside><h4 id="EBnnqE">6. Manny Ramirez</h4>
<p id="R44rJa">I totally understand the voters who leave Ramirez off their ballots while voting for Bonds and Clemens. The latter two were using in an era where it was almost expected, if not encouraged, by baseball. Ramirez was busted multiple times in the Steroids Are Evil era. It almost seems like a semantical issue, but it’s a legitimate distinction. </p>
<p id="q8EJnw">Still, he was one of the best hitters any of us will ever watch. His defense was historically clompy, and that really screws with his WAR, but say the words out loud: One of the best hitters in baseball history. Just an absolute savant. If I’m going to pretend that Todd Helton was impossible to get out, I’m <em>really</em> going to go hard for Manny. </p>
<p id="Bf6May">Plus, he made baseball waaaaaaaay more fun. Keep room on your ballot for players who make baseball more fun.</p>
<h4 id="xtk30Z">7. Mike Mussina</h4>
<p id="DjY6j4">He would have been in on the first ballot if he had played in a different era. As is, he happened to play in an era where a 3.50 ERA was good enough to <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1999.shtml#all_AL_CYA_voting">finish second in the Cy Young</a>, which means that his numbers need a whole lot of context. He had a four-WAR season when his ERA was close to five, which is something that breaks our modern brains. </p>
<p id="fzwCep">Mussina finished with Cy Young votes in nine different seasons, a 123 ERA+, and 270 wins, which are all pieces of evidence that should tempt stat dorks and traditionalists alike, but the most important argument, again, is the part where he was better at pitching than almost everyone who was active at the same time as him. That went on for, oh, 17 or 18 years. </p>
<p id="rGrTjs">As someone who followed baseball with a magnifying glass during Mussina’s career, it’s impossible to believe there is anyone who paid attention during this time who <em>doesn’t</em> believe he’s a Hall of Famer. Which means the people who are leaving him off weren’t paying attention and should be called out as such. Unless they’re exceptionally awful at adjusting for context and league-wide numbers. Maybe both? </p>
<p id="T6LBri">Probably both. </p>
<h4 id="bdvUHS">8. Larry Walker</h4>
<p id="bYFBVd">Probably as good as Vladimir Guerrero. Completely hosed by injuries, which puts him in that ambiguous Will Clark zone, but he was probably as good as Todd Helton, if not better. If I’m going for one, I’m almost required to double dip. </p>
<p id="IebYNn">Again, if his name were Zoot Clamber, <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/1/11/14229960/baseball-hall-of-fame-catfish-hunter-im-very-sorry-also-edgar-martinez-is-sangre-golpista">he would have been in five ballots ago</a>. Let’s not punish the Larrys of the world any more than we have to. </p>
<h4 id="UKLT9X">9. Mariano Rivera</h4>
<p id="ADb5xT">Like I would risk being the one dork who left him off. Although I was tempted so that I could fit Jeff Kent or Fred McGriff on here. </p>
<p id="9UqKFt">I get the whole bias against closers, who are usually less valuable to their team than just about anyone else on the roster, but Rivera was absolutely a part of baseball’s story while he was active. Also, he was a warlock, which gets bonus points in my system. Warlocks always get my vote.</p>
<h4 id="0zIO1u">10. Scott Rolen</h4>
<p id="V2gzr3">If we’re going to look at Mike Mussina’s numbers through rose-colored glasses because of the era he played in, we have to do the same with Rolen’s, but in the opposite direction. A guy hitting .289 with 25 homers in 2001 was pretty good, but it was absolutely not that special. Rolen’s raw numbers aren’t enough. He needs something more. </p>
<p id="d507Qu">Well, good thing he was one of the greatest defenders ever to play third base, then. It helps his case that third base is historically underrepresented, too, which turns him from a fringe candidate to someone worthy of a Blyleven-like push. If the nerds can get Tim Raines in the Hall, they can do the same for Rolen. </p>
<p id="Dy1dBP">So that’s the ballot, which means there are omissions. Apologies to Jeff Kent, Sammy Sosa, and Fred McGriff, who probably deserve to be in. Absolutely no apologies will ever come out of my fingers for Curt Schilling, but, yes, he was probably as good as Mussina and Halladay, and a museum about baseball is probably incomplete without him. I would love the chance to stand in front of his plaque with my daughters and explain how he was excellent at sports and bad at life. </p>
<p id="O67B6s">Which is something I would do with an awful lot of plaques, actually. </p>
<p id="q9vs0m">Starting to wonder about “humans” in general, really. They’re kind of gross. </p>
<p id="oW8q3H">But, anyway, this is the only correct Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for 2019. Although if my math is correct, with 14 worthy Hall of Famers and only 10 spots, there are actually 1,001 different correct ballots, but now you’re making me think too much. </p>
<p id="PhbEPY">No, no, this is the only correct one. It’s already in the headline, and I’m too lazy to change it. Thanks for understanding, and have a happy Argue About Baseball Online Day. </p>
https://www.sbnation.com/2019/1/22/18192976/baseball-hall-of-fame-ballot-vote-2019Grant Brisbee