Prick up your ears and be deafened by truth. Nolan Ryan did not beat the ever-lovin' bejesus out of Robin Ventura, despite purported video evidence and decades of tut-tutting to the contrary.
We bring this up because Thursday occasions the anniversary of said non-beating. Now please turn your eyes to the embedded Magnavox color television below and vault back in time to Aug. 4, 1993, when all of America was furiously making out to Tag Team's Whoomp! There It Is and Billy Joel's The River of Dreams ...
All right. You know the sequence of events by now. Now let's view them through fresh eyeballs.
First, yes, once Ventura crosses the county line -- Mound County, of which Ryan was sheriff, often being re-elected in unopposed fashion -- Ryan gets him in a headlock and begins delivering targeted blows, in keeping with the ancient rituals of combat. However, I would submit that said blows were at most a few inches north of schoolyard noogies.
Here's an action-sports GIF to give you the tenor of things:
Yeah, those are knuckle sandwiches, but they're finger sandwiches with the crust cut off. He's in essence tapping Ventura on top of the skulll, which I'm sure you'll agree does not particularly hurt.
Also, note Ryan's unsteady footing as Ventura quite possibly prepares to suplex the crap out of him. That doesn't happen, mostly because Ivan Rodriguez is there to make it a two-on-one affair, at least insofar as the grappling is concerned. It looks like Ryan may land at least one shot to the face area, but as you can see, Ventura had no visible scars after the fracas.
Also, as the peace-making scrum begins to descend upon the three combatants, note that Ventura has escaped the headlock and put Ryan in what looks like a seatbelt grip, which is quite conducive to having one's way with an opponent. Consider that this ...
... is neither the body positioning nor the visage of someone who's winning a fight.
Your present scribe is not the first to indulge in such fearless revisionism. For instance, please regard the following documentary presentation, sourced from deep within the innards of White Sox Nation and set to throbbing Rock and/or Roll music ...
Great, important work, all involved.
Again, Ryan was able to peck at his cranium a few times, in part because his catcher was also grabbing Ventura. But then Ventura escaped, put Ryan in a lock, and was within moments of achieving the first base-brawl tap-out in the annals of history.
This truth that you just beheld is admittedly the ambient temperature of lava, so you are forgiven if you were woefully unprepared for it. If this is you, then adjust your browser settings to "Would Much Prefer The Consoling Untruths of Mythos" to filter out this kind of content in the future. It's not your fault.
Is this author saying Ventura won the fight? No. This author is saying that if there's a one-on-one encounter between two professional athletes, one 20 years older than the other, then the critical headlock escape detailed above leads to one of the two following sequences in favor of Mr. Ventura.
Possibility No. 1:
And Possibility No. 2:
People, there is no other way.
Look, a too-large number of you have been roaming about the earth these last 23 years loudly proclaiming that Nolan Ryan beat up Robin Ventura. In truth, he prevailed only on the scorecard because meddlesome interlopers prevented the Business Meeting in question to reach its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion is Robin Ventura's righteous usurpation of the Sheriff of Mound County.
Those who have believed otherwise owe the rest of us an apology. Please use the comments section to apologize to Robin Ventura, yes, but most especially apologize to me for your rank ignorance when it comes to the fighting arts.
In conclusion ...
Wait, that's not what I meant.
