Say it Ain't So, Bill Ripken!

Twenty years ago, Bill Ripken, the brother of Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and a member of baseball's first family, created a media frenzy when his baseball card was found to have an obscene slogan printed on it. Now, the truth of what really happened, and how the card came into being, has come to light, thanks to Bill himself.

In an interview with CNBC's Darren Rovell, Ripken admits to his role in one of sports memorabilia collecting's biggest scandals. After years of denials and statements that the episode was the result of a prank, Ripken has admitted that it was his mistake that caused all of the controversy.

The year was 1989, and the Fleer Card Company (as well as peers like Topps and Upper Deck) had released its annual set of baseball trading cards. Among them was a Baltimore Orioles rookie Billy Ripken, who played second base alongside his brother, All-Star shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. Their father, Cal Sr., managed the Orioles, making for an interesting baseball story.

Billy had only an average rookie season, so his 1989 rookie cards weren't in high demand by collectors. Fleer's 1989 Billy Ripken card got little attention, until someone noticed that in Ripken's picture, an obscenity ("F*** Face") was visible on the bottom "knob" of his bat. By the time Fleer caught the mistake, hundreds, if not thousands of cards had been printed (even today, no one knows for sure). The scandal made national news, and everyone was looking to deflect blame.

Ripken had long denied any role in the controversy, claiming the bat wasn't his or even that he was the target of a prank by teammates who wrote the words on a bat they knew he was using. At the time, Ripken was able to deflect some of the blame and criticism over the scandal, but he now admits the whole situation was his fault. He had written the ill-fated words on his batting practice bat (to distinguish it from game bats) and happened to grab it when a Fleer photographer came calling.

"I remember a guy tapping me on the shoulder asking if he could take my picture. Never once did I think about it. I posed for the shot and he took it," Ripken said, according to the interview with CNBC . It never occurred to him that the words were on the bat, and didn't realize the mistake until the card was released almost a year later.

The fact that the obscenity was missed by proofreaders fueled speculation that Fleer purposely let the card be printed to create publicity in a competitive baseball card market. If so, the ploy worked; the card's value shot up to hundreds of dollars, and Fleer baseball cards flew off of shelves. Fleer also printed a number of "corrected" versions of the card, including ones with the obscenity blacked out, or blurred out, and even with a notch cut out of the card to remove the piece of the offending picture. Even the different corrected versions were also highly sought after, as Billy Ripken mania continued throughout the summer. Fleer has long denied they released the card on purpose. Even today, Ripken finds the denial hard to believe.

Ripken took the scandal in stride, and when he was married later that year, he gave his groomsmen the card as gifts. He regrets the situation, and admits it still comes up on a weekly basis.

"When people recognize me, I see the look on their face," Ripken said. "They think of the card immediately and, before they even ask, I say, 'Yeah, it was me.' To this day, it still happens a couple of times a week."

SOURCE: CNBC: BILL RIPKEN BAT: TWENTY YEARS LATER