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updated
2/4/05
Inductee's
name June 13, 2004 was a significant day in the world of sports. It had nothing to do with the NBA playoffs or any tennis match. It was the evening Ralph Wiley passed at his home in Orlando from heart failure. Ralph was only 52… Goddamn he started a rack of fires in such a short time! For
those of you who don’t know Ralph, he was a sports writer
for among other outlets, The guy was flat out brilliant with a pen. He wrote a lot of funny stuff. As much as most of our staff dislikes cheeseeyes references around here, Ralph’s “The Bad Jordan, The Good Jordan” shtick with Kobe and KJ was classic. But Wiles was a complex journalist with a lot more to him than all that stuff you just saw on the surface of his writing. Sure he was a sports guy (no simmons), but his range allowed him to present it for the audiences of GQ, Premiere and National Geographic among other publications. He wrote a book about Malcolm X, co-published one with Spike Lee and penned his own in Why Black People Tend to Shout. The real reason I became a Wiley fan though is baseball. He stood up for two of the greatest ball players of our time when damn near nobody else would touch them, because of their supposed “arrogance and selfishness.” Before Barry Bonds hit a million homeruns a couple of years ago, Wiley had been running shot gun with the Bail Bonds man, for quite some time. And how could anyone not remember one of Ralph’s throwing a Ricky “first person” Henderson rant into his column? Before Jim Rome, Max Kellerman or whoever else realized how funny Ricky was (all late), Ralph had been there, done that, but also made you understand how misunderstood the greatest lead off hitter in baseball was. “Ricky really means no harm.” I
remember right before he passed last year he made me really laugh
out loud one morning at work. No joke, my slacks were almost ruined.
After a Lakers-Pistons Finals game in which little used reserve
Luke Walton had seven points, five boards and eight assists in
about 48 seconds of play, Wiley dedicated a whole column to him,
declaring Young Walton as “White Magic.” Ralph had
people boiling all week with that reference. He didn’t care
though. He could care less about Magic, Luke or the Lakers. He
just thought it was funny. Now, that’s fiya, a classic Wile(y)
fiya. |
Big Earl: GET OUT THE WAY! |
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ESPN.
In more instances than I can remember,
he and to a lesser extent Bill Rhoden, were the only voices of
reason on The Sports Reporters every Sunday morning on
the station. He was one of the original writers for their website’s
Page 2 columns. I used to grab my coffee and run to the computer
on Monday mornings so I could see his now classic “Uncensored
Balloon Thoughts,” cleverly jabbing at the past sports weekend.
He would take shots at Ricky Williams’ feminine side, Tiger
Woods’ multiracial background, and Shaq… well, be
Shaq but do so with a lightheartedness that no one could really
take as a low blow. 