# The true story of Billy Ripken's "Fuck Face" baseball card revealed! **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 10, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566 "2008-12-10T16:41:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/1 "2008-12-10T16:41:32Z")
> **[Billy Ripken Obscenity Bat: He Finally Talks 20 Years Later](https://www.cnbc.com/2008/12/09/billy-ripken-obscenity-bat-he-finally-talks-20-years-later.html)** > > Today, the Billy Ripken 1989 Fleer card sells for about $5. The 1989 Fleer card of his Hall of Fame brother still sells for less. For nearly 20 years, Billy Ripken hasn't told the whole story. That is, until he revealed to me how it all went down: In an interview with CNBC, Billy Ripken revealed the truth about his 1989 Fleer card: It was really his bat and it really says “Fuck Face” on it. I can now die a happy man (and I can do it clutching my Ripken “Fuck Face” card). [QUOTE=Billy Ripken] “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 ‘F–k’ Face on it.” [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/2 "2008-12-10T17:17:21Z")
Too funny. I didn’t even know about that. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/3 "2008-12-10T17:25:38Z")
What a weird guy. He thinks Fleer’s people enhanced the writing on the bat. ---
**Author:** ![History\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b19c9b/32.png) [@History\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/History_Geek)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/4 "2008-12-10T17:35:19Z")
I bought a lot of Fleer cards that year, trying to get one of those. Never had any luck. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/5 "2008-12-10T17:37:15Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > What a weird guy. He thinks Fleer’s people enhanced the writing on the bat. The writing on the actual card is ridiculously clear. Much clearer than the pictures found on other baseball cards from the 80s. While I’m not sure I believe that, if the people at Fleer ever admitted that they did enhance it, I wouldn’t be surprised. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/6 "2008-12-10T19:17:20Z")
> [@History\_Geek](#): > > I bought a lot of Fleer cards that year, trying to get one of those. Never had any luck. I got at least one of the censored cards. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Neighbor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hi_neighbor/32/494_2.png) [@Hi\_Neighbor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Neighbor)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/7 "2008-12-10T19:47:50Z")
He wrote “Fuck Face” on it because a “3” would have been too confusing? ---
**Author:** ![fusoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@fusoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fusoya)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/8 "2008-12-10T22:16:37Z")
Wow. There’s a good chance I owned one of those cards, and never knew about this… ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/9 "2008-12-10T22:23:55Z")
> [@Hi\_Neighbor](#): > > He wrote “Fuck Face” on it because a “3” would have been too confusing? We-e-ee-e-ll, depending which way you look at it, a “3” could look like an “E” or a “W” or an “M”, but “fuck face” only ever looks like “fuck face”. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/10 "2008-12-11T00:06:00Z")
I was dealing in cards at that point. Fleer was a brand you couldn’t buy in huge quantities, the way you could Topps. So, I had two employees driving to every Lawson’s in the Akron Metro area for two days buying every box of Fleer we could get. I’d say we got a few hundred of them. I _think_ I remember getting $10-25 each for them. The idea that they were worth $500(presented in that article) is ludicrous. A year later, no one cared. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/11 "2008-12-11T02:17:08Z")
From the article linked in the OP: [QUOTE=Billy Ripken] “After the season was over, in early January, I got a call from our PR guy Rick Vaughn.” [/QUOTE] It could be coincidence, but Rick Vaughn is the character played by Charlie Sheen in Major League. Billy was always an asshole and I wouldn’t trust this story to be gospel. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/12 "2008-12-11T02:47:57Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > From the article linked in the OP: > > It could be coincidence, but Rick Vaughn is the character played by Charlie Sheen in Major League. Billy was always an asshole and I wouldn’t trust this story to be gospel. Coincidence. The spokesman for the Orioles at that point WAS Rick Vaughn. Checked my newspaper database. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-true-story-of-billy-ripkens-fuck-face-baseball-card-revealed/476566/13 "2008-12-11T03:37:34Z")
Thanks for looking. Billy could be on the up-and-up for this one.