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Hello! Through technology and the graciousness of Purple Row editorial staff, I am posting this piece from the alternative universe known as Earth Two. It’s great here! A few things to know about my home: Everyone gets free ice cream for some reason, cars have 100 miles per gallon gas mileage, and Larry Walker is a Hall of Famer.
Here on Earth Two, with Larry Walker inducted on 82% of the vote, we have moved on to much greater problems, such as poverty, war, why people in Ford trucks seem to want to back into spaces in the middle of a crowded lot, how to manage our ice cream shortage, and figuring out what to do with all this useless oil. Larry’s career 72.6 WAR and 141 OPS+ isn’t up for much debate, and he just sits in bronze on the wall in Cooperstown. Without Walker clouding our minds, we’re free to explore the great questions of humanity.
Larry’s three batting titles, one MVP award, and several seasons with an OPS+ in the 160s don’t even come up at dinner because we’re too busy with real things. Things like curing disease, saving species of animals, and whether or not people should be allowed to bring in outside food to the movie theater. Why waste precious moments on Larry Walker’s career 2,160 hits when we have so many real issues to discuss?
Now, don’t get me wrong, Earth Two still has numerous issues to work out. We often get into heated discussions about Vladimir Guerrero. We don’t understand why he, with basically the same résumé as Larry, isn’t getting the same Hall of Fame love.
I mean, Vlad’s OPS+ is 140, his career WAR is lower at 59.3 but his statistics are pretty similar to Larry’s, and he’s gotten almost no love! Seems crazy to me to include one and not the other considering they’re just as good as each other. But I’m not a Hall of Fame voter, what do I know?
Just yesterday I was working at my office (which sells commemorative Larry Walker plates) and someone asked why we wouldn’t expand into Vlad Guerrero plates. I didn’t really have an answer. They’re basically the same player after all. It’s a very strange thing.
Anyway, I was asked with describing Earth Two now that Larry’s been inducted into the Hall of Fame and most of us have moved on to bigger and better things.
The truth is, after Larry’s induction, a bunch of us felt lost for a while. There were months where we couldn’t find anything to be mad about. It was a weird time period where we all just sort of drifted along, tweeting only pictures of our meals or getting mad about President Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s bill to raise taxes on those who cannot smell what he is cooking.
Finally, groups of people started to form who wanted to transfer this energy into fixing things. It wasn’t long before we had groups for everything from animal conservation to fixing the verified application on Twitter (Purple Row received Twitter verification years ago instead of in late 2017). These were all important things and thankfully, since we didn’t have to discuss whether Larry Walker’s 383 career home runs were Hall of Fame worthy, we had the time to do these things.
Just yesterday I was at my group’s meeting. We are the group that worked to make high fives mandatory at the end of all business meetings or family dinners. It’s a tough process but we feel it’s great for this country. It’s the best place to put all this unused energy I would’ve wasted on getting Larry Walker into the Hall of Fame.
I find it odd that I was requested to write this considering how silly of an argument it was here on Earth Two, and I hope your universe one day reaches this level of peace. We have done so much for the benefit of the world, all because Larry Walker was deservedly elected to the Hall of Fame.