My prepared comments for Ronald Acuña’s Hall of Fame induction

Ronald Acuña, Jr. has had quite the rookie season with the Braves. If you’ve been paying any attention at all you know that Atlanta is ahead of schedule in their playoff efforts at least partly thanks to Acuna’s play.

He’s undoubtedly a star, and at only 20 years old (somehow) we will hopefully be watching him for a decade or more to come. And someone who will be just as bright, gregarious, entertaining, and talented for all of that time.

In celebration of a debut season that saw Acuña hit .293 with 26 home runs and a franchise record streak of lead-off home runs, and in advance of his first postseason appearance, I decided to write up some brief remarks for Acuña’s Hall of Fame induction many years from now. While you read them, I have to go cast some anti-jinx spells I found online to make sure I’m not ruining his career while doing this.

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Hello,

What a beautiful day! Let’s all be glad the smoke pollution affecting much of the Northeastern United States is leaving Cooperstown alone right now. It almost feels like 2023 again, being able to see the sun and all.

With that aside, you all know why we’re here today. Ronald Acuña, Jr. is being inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in his first eligible year. If that weren’t impressive enough, we can’t forget to mention he is also the first player to ever unanimously be voted into the Hall of Fame, finally surpassing Ken Griffey, Jr.’s 99.32 percent of votes after decades of other players trying. No one thought we’d ever see the day. Even Grant Brisbee, who is finally a Hall of Fame voter and harbored an unhealthy grudge against Acuña after he single-handedly led the Braves to a 2031 World Series win after taking the NLCS crown from the first-place Giants, voted for him.

Everyone assembled on this lawn knows his bonafides, but let’s recap them so as to fully appreciate what he accomplished over his lengthy and inspirational career. Acuña retired in 2042 at the age of 44 after becoming the first person to hit 1,000 career home runs. Even that one season where he suddenly became obsessed with dog agility contests and retired to train Border Collies and win the American Kennel Club National Agility Championship could not derail his 50-plus home runs-per-year pace.

Acuña hit a home run off of every pitcher he ever faced at least once. Including Mariano Rivera, who came out of retirement just to have the honor of Acuña hitting a dinger off of him. That moment was almost overshadowed by the strange coincidence of Gin Blossoms leads singer Robin Wilson being the one to catch that historic ball and not giving it back to the Braves until they paid him $6 million for it, a request and situation we still do not have an explanation for all these years later.

But what a moment it was. Of course we all remember his 800th home run, when his bat flip twirled so high it hit the windows of press row. As the first athlete to ever hold sponsorship deals with Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour at the same time, the style of the trio of congratulatory commercials that followed — each holding a clue to unlock a safe located in Fort Pulaski that was holding one-of-a-kind custom Acuña cleats worth $20,000 — will probably never be seen again.

For two decades and more, Acuña has been a constant presence at Coca Cola-SunTrust-CNN Park Resort and State Capital. While it was disappointing the bill that would have his face being added to Mount Rushmore was vetoed by President Guerrero, Jr. (part of the still-lingering fallout from the 2028 home run race that Vlad, Jr. lost, 69-68), I am pleased to announce on behalf of Governor Albies that the petition to have Georgia’s coastline carved into Acuña’s profile is strongly being considered and his Hall of Fame induction can only help increase the positive groundswell needed to make it happen.

It would be thoughtless of me not to also give credit to Acuña’s family and friends, who are here today to watch him enter the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

Where would he be without his wife Zendaya and their three children, a family that has constantly supported each other and the first couple to have three Oscars and three World Series rings between them (Zendaya’s two Academy Awards of course came from her esteemed collaborations with directorial team Sir and Rumi Carter, while Acuña won his Best Picture Oscar for his production credit on The Captain Going Down With His Ship: The Story of How Derek Jeter Ruined the Marlins).

It’s been quite a career. Even the downsides, like the time he accidentally drove then-Braves manager Joe Mauer into an early retirement by insisting the team do a group singalong of “Sussudio” before every game for good luck. Or the time he started a feud with Kiké Hernandez over who was better at Skee Ball and it crashed Instagram’s servers.

But even those blemishes are much funnier in the rearview, without the pearl clutching by baseball media overshadowing the humor of the infighting. Because I think we can all agree Acuña is the greatest baseball player of our time, and even though we only had the inklings of how great he would become back during his home run spree of August 2018, he has more than surpassed anyone’s expectations.