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kottke.org posts about billyripken

The Billy Ripken

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Billy Ripken “fuck face” card. Ripken explains for the first time how the card came to be.

Now I had to write something on the bat. At Memorial Stadium, the bat room was not too close to the clubhouse, so I wanted to write something that I could find immediately if I looked up and it was 4:44 and I had to get out there on the field a minute later and not be late. There were five big grocery carts full of bats in there and if I wrote my number 3, it could be too confusing. So I wrote ‘Fโ€”k’ Face on it.

At the time, it was assumed by many that Ripken had intentionally sabotaged his card with the obscenity. I still have one of these somewhere… (via unlikely words)