May 17, 2006

The Life and Times of Billy Ringo

You know those morons who sit around tapping away at their keyboards writing messages to other morons on Internet message boards?

Yeah. I’m one of those. Many lament that the Internet age has eroded our sense of community and neighborhood, because we sit at our computers typing instead of standing at the fence talking. I actually do quite a bit of both, but for the most part I will plead guilty to this. My neighbors just don’t want to talk Detroit Tiger baseball as much as I do, and I can only impose so much of it on my wife.

But at MotownSports.com, you can talk Tiger baseball 24/7 – and some do. Not every Internet message board is equal, but for the most part these online communities offer a mixture of fairly well-adjusted folks, questionable characters and those who make you glad you don’t have to list your home address to register your membership.

And since most users rarely post using their real names, you can reveal only as much about yourself as you want – and no more.

But sometimes the screen names reveal more about you than you might expect, and such is the case with Billy Ringo. Seventy-six years old, his handle dates back to Old West shoot-em-out games he played with his cousin, who fancied himself the sheriff and called himself Tom Mix. He called his adversary Billy Ringo, and since our man found good guys rather boring anyway, Billy Ringo it was.

Few have ever fit in to this Motown community of morons better than this septuagenarian, one-time Christian Reformed church elder from Holland, Michigan. His contributions: wit, baseball knowledge and a unique ability to calm passions that tend to heat up on the baseball discussion boards, or on the ultimate home of nonsense, the political board.

But communities have certain qualities, one of which is to rally around their own when the chips are down. Online communities, it would seem, lack the ability to function in that way. It was a premise Ringo would test one dark day in 2005.

A simple, straightforward message posted in the MotownSports Bar and Grill brought instant sobriety to a scene too often inebriated with the inane. There had been a shooting. Two people were dead. They were people Billy Ringo loved, and his world was shattered. This was not a man who lacked, shall we say, real friends. Or family. He had plenty of people around him to share his pain. But he just decided that the MotownSports community ought to act like a community, and so he chose to share.

How did the community of morons respond? By doing the best it could. With e-mails and private messages of condolence. With public expressions of love, support, encouragement and promises of prayer. And the hands extended were returned. At 76, a Korean War veteran, an old newspaper reporter, a father of four and a loving husband of nearly 50 years, found himself making new friends. A sportswriter from Fenton. A college student from Grand Rapids. A young woman from Ann Arbor by way of Boston. Soon the sting of the tragedy began to fade, and Billy Ringo once again represented the sage, tested wisdom and love that can only come from having spent a lifetime discovering the value of love, and finding it to be good.

On May 6, 2006, user Biff Mayhem (not his real name, but it should be), secured a suite for a selected group from the Grand Rapids area to get together and attend a game of the Tigers’ Class A affiliate, the West Michigan Whitecaps. Everyone who confirmed their attendance – and I was no exception – made the same comment when they saw the list of other attendees:

“Billy Ringo is going to be there? Awesome!”

Those of us fortunate enough to be included counted the days until we would get a chance to meet each other – but especially to meet the great Billy Ringo.

With his cane in his left hand and his Tiger cap firmly affixed on his head, Ringo regaled us with stories, sentiments and insight. We hoped that our decision to include him made an old man feel happy in his waning years. Instead, he made us feel that way – even providing the silly highlight of the day when he came to realize that he had been missing a lens out of his glasses the entire day.

So fresh off an unspeakable tragedy, the irascible Billy Ringo turned a simple outing to a ballgame into a day few would forget.

A week later, Billy sat down at his keyboard and composed the following message for the board: “That composure is something that the whole team can feed on. If Pudge was supposed to be a leader and role model for the team, Kenny has added greatly by sort of bringing a ‘settle down’ attitude to the mix. Pudge is still a key player, and Kenny may be even more\\\\\.”

And that was as far as he got. At the age of 76, Billy Ringo passed away talking about the passion he shared with others. Communities rally together, and sometimes they cry together. The Internet can be a scary place, but so can the world. It is as good or bad as the people who steer it.

Billy Ringo died talking Tiger baseball, but not before enriching the lives of countless others. I’d sign up for that. Rest in peace, Billy.

This is Column # DC33. Request permission to publish here.