When Myth Becomes Fact

At the very top of the list of things I don’t care about is anything concerning Halls of Fame. No matter the industry or sport, whether they’re commemorating old rock stars or even older sports legends, the various Halls of Fame littered throughout this country stand as backwards-looking monuments against modernity. That’s just my fancy-pants way of saying that they exist solely to exalt the “way things used to be”, to continue the American tradition of misremembering and romanticizing the past. However, despite my apathy towards these collections of old people clinging shamelessly to their previous lives, I feel compelled to write briefly about today’s events.

The Baseball Writers of America have elected, with a near-record 98.5 percent approval, Cal Ripken Jr., baseball’s bland hero of workman-like vigilance, into their Hall of Fame. What a fucking shock. He gets that staggering amount of approval—from a group of men who rarely agree on anything—basically because he stubbornly refused to take a day off from his position as Baltimore’s Patron Saint of the Pop-Fly Out.

From Dave Sheinin in the Washington Post, a writer who has never missed an opportunity to fellate the mighty Ripken in print:

“The 21-year playing career of former Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., along with all its blue-collar symbolism and enduring resonance, was validated today as one of the most admired in baseball history...”

I’ve had to stomach this type of Ripken-slurping my entire life, and I have never been able to understand why. This man continued playing long after he was of any value to his ball club solely so he could earn an individual achievement. He was a detriment to his team, not allowing younger, more talented players to take his position or his slot in the batting line-up. Not counting his first five years, he contributed very little besides an endlessly embarrassing parade of awkward stances and poses that were supposed to snap him out of his seemingly constant slumps.

In 1991, he hit over .300 and had over 30 homeruns and got the MVP for a team that finished as the worst in baseball. During the mid-90s when the Orioles stood as the obstacle for the New York Yankees in back to back years of playoff rivalry, Ripken, already a past-his-prime joke, was absent in terms of baseball production, but there he was, still in the line-up, grounding into double plays and popping out to the catcher.

He stands, in my mind anyway, as the epitome of hubris and selfishness, as a man more preoccupied with how others perceived him than with being an actual human being. The legend surrounding him tells us that every night after games, he stayed until all autographs were signed and all the fans had a chance to stand in his luminescence. This is, of course, bullshit. As is the notion that anyone who’s hitting .212 shouldn’t be shelved for a week or two.

Leading up to his mid-summer induction we will be constantly reminded that Ripken played the game “the way it was supposed to be played.” And Ripken himself will do interview after interview with that same self-satisfied smirk of a snake oil peddler he’s had plastered to his face since he broke Lou Gherig’s consecutive games played streak.

He’ll give his speech and talk of his dad teaching him the game, and of loving the game, and of respecting the game. But what he won’t do is conjure images of greatness in the minds of the millions of baseball fans across this country. He won’t inspire millions with his eloquence or his courage to stand up for something he believes in. All he’ll do is confirm this basic truth: If you stick around long enough, people will begin to think that you were great.

As the old saying goes, when the myth becomes fact, print the myth.