CAL RIPKEN : An Oriole With Two Streaks--One Is Gray and the Other’s 6,247

Cal Ripken does take a seat every once in a while.

He arrived here Sunday night for the All-Star Game and stretched out his long legs on the team bus. Snuggled next to him was his girlfriend, Kelly, who has been his companion on virtually every trip this year. They kept giggling. Cal Ripken does relax every once in a while.

Kelly had brought along some old party pictures taken about two years ago when they were on some trip together.

She looked at one of them and said to Ripken: “Cal, what’s the difference in how you look now compared to then?”

“I don’t know, what?” he said.

“You had hair then,” she said.

Good thing ballplayers wear caps because Cal Ripken has one heck of a bald spot. Soon, it won’t be a bald spot, but a bald head. And he’s only 25.

But like most everything else, the blame goes to Cal’s dad, Cal Ripken Sr., who is as bald as a baseball.

Like father, like son. It’s a recurring theme in the life of Cal Ripken Jr.

Anyway, young Cal has some gray hairs, too. He laughs and says: “Blame it on the streak . . . Blame it on the streak.”

The streak. Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles, the starting American League shortstop in tonight’s All-Star Game, has played in 690 consecutive games and 6,247 consecutive innings. A day off? Take off, he says.

The last time he missed an inning was 1982--he can’t remember if it was May or June--and he says he feels as if he’s 22, which must be a great feeling if you’re 25.

His manager, Earl Weaver, won’t remove him from the lineup. If the Orioles were ahead or behind 10-0, he still wouldn’t dream of it. Good trivia question: Who is Ripken’s backup?

“If he does (miss an inning),” it’ll be his decision or an injury--not mine,” Weaver told the Washington Post. “He doesn’t look like he’s getting tired, does he?”

Injury? Yeah, he’s had one of those. He says back in Double-A ball, he dislocated his finger once.

“And I got hit in the head by Mike Moore my rookie year,” Ripken said. “I could’ve played the next day, but I was hitting about .117, so Earl yanked me.”

He is afraid to lift weights because he has seen guys build themselves up and suddenly become injury-prone. Why take the chance? The only likely way he’ll get hurt is from fouling a ball off his left foot. He does that at least once a day.

Atlanta’s Dale Murphy replaced Steve Garvey as king of the active streaks, but Murphy even ended his last week after having played in 740 consecutive games. Murph wasn’t hitting well, so he went to Manager Chuck Tanner and asked for a day off.

Who was Tanner to say no?

So Murphy sat for a day, and says he feels like a new man.

He also says that what Ripken is doing is sort of strange.

“I couldn’t do that inning thing,” Murphy said Monday. “I don’t know how he does it. It’s amazing. The stamina and the mental ability to concentrate day in and day out. It’s superhuman. Yeah, that sounds like the right word for it--superhuman.”

Garvey played 1,207 straight games for the Dodgers and Padres, but he, too, said that playing every inning isn’t winning baseball.

“If you play a whole season without missing an inning, that’s a wonderful goal to shoot for,” he said. “But the objective is games. That’s the standard, simply because your contract calls for 162 games.

“By missing an inning, you can garner up. You could hurt your team if you’re tired. In 1978 or 1979 I missed just six innings, and those were because of blowouts. I don’t know. This is just my perspective.”

Ripken yawned when he heard the question, which was: “Well, Cal, why don’t you miss an inning? Dale Murphy can’t believe what you’re doing . . . “

He has heard this question so many times that he’s absolutely sick of it, but he consented to explain one more time.

“I’ve got a reason for it,” he said. “First of all, something’s wrong when people say it’s a good rest for you if you come out in the seventh inning. How much rest can you get from the seventh to the ninth?

“And if you’re swinging well, you naturally are gonna want another at-bat, right? And if you’re not swinging well, you can experiment with that last at-bat. I’ll use a new stance or something. I get something out of it. That’s my reasoning.

“What I really hate is that every time I get in a slump, they say it’s because I’m tired from playing so much. Always, I’m tired. I’m not tired. It’s not fair.”

Like everything else, blame it on dad. Cal Ripken Sr. wants Cal Ripken Jr. to be just like Cal Ripken Sr. Not that that’s bad. Cal Ripken Sr. is a great guy--if you like drill sergeants.

Vi Ripken, the drill sergeant’s wife, usually calls her husband Calvin and her son Cal--so that’s how we’ll separate them here.

Calvin--the Oriole third base coach--thinks that everything in life should be done for a purpose. Calvin cannot tolerate goofing around.

Almost every day, Cal walks up to friend and teammate John Shelby and punches him. Shelby punches back.

Calvin can’t stand it. Calvin tells this to Cal all the time. Sometimes, after Sunday home games, Calvin will call Cal into his office and air Cal out. They will speak for two hours sometimes, about how Cal was smiling during infield practice instead of scooping grounders.

Other examples:

--Cal said: “If I don’t take too many ground balls, he’ll ask me why.”

That’s why Cal refuses to miss infield practice.

--Cal said: “Or if I’m goofing off in batting practice, trying to hit home runs, he’ll ask why.”

That’s why Cal refuses to miss batting practice.

Vi Ripken said: “Cal likes to joke and clown around, and his father doesn’t think that belongs on the baseball field. He tells this to Cal, but I think it goes in one ear and out the other. And I think that’s, in part, because Cal just wants to hear his father keep saying it.”

It’s not clear how proud Calvin is of Cal. Asked about it, Calvin replied, “Sure, I’m proud.”

A reporter said: “Well, it doesn’t seem like it.”

Calvin replied: “Well, there are 162 games to be played next year. There’re a lot of years ahead.”

So, apparently, Calvin isn’t ready to be totally proud of Cal until Cal is consistent for 10 or 11 years.

“My dad made me what I am,” Cal said.

His dad doesn’t want him to miss a game. Get it?

Now, it was Vi who raised Cal, and Ellen and Fred and Billy. Calvin was mostly gone, off managing minor league baseball teams. Calvin has told reporters that it wasn’t easy this way, because all the other kids brought their dads to their Little League games, and Cal had to bring Mommy. Little leaguers hate being a mama’s boy.

But it had to be Mom. She attended every game. One time, Cal was pitching and hit three straight batters. The coach went out to talk to Cal but came back laughing.

He said to Vi: “You know what your son said? I was gonna tell him to relax, but he said, ‘They sure don’t move out of the way very fast, do they?’ ”

In the backyard, Cal played ball by himself, though after a while, Billy joined him. Billy is four years younger--he is playing Double-A ball in the Orioles’ organization--so when they played against each other, Cal would have to do it left-handed and could make only one out an inning. Cal would catch screaming line drives and yell: “Brooks Robinson!”

Soon, he met Brooks Robinson. Calvin was made a coach of the big league team and brought the kids along for workouts. Little Cal was too small to be hanging around the infield, where line drives could bean him. So they sent him out to shag flies.

“I liked going to the ballpark,” Cal said. “But because I got to be near (Calvin), not because I wanted to shag flies. But soon, it was the other way around.”

Not all of Calvin’s sons were enamored of baseball. Fred Ripken is a motorcycle mechanic.

“No, he didn’t play,” Vi said. “No interest. He was very athletically inclined and capable of playing, but he didn’t. I don’t know if it’s the pressure he felt or because he wanted his own identity. Yes, he was searching for an identity. He’d pick up the games great, but he had no discipline. He saw no reason for practicing, and his love of motorcycles took over.”

Meanwhile, the Orioles signed Cal and sent him to the minors. He was a shortstop originally, but a third baseman got hurt and they moved Cal there.

He arrived in the big leagues. The Orioles still had Doug DeCinces, but Weaver wanted to make room for Cal. In an organizational meeting, the bosses refused to trade DeCinces. Weaver fumed.

“You’re ruining a kid’s chances at the Hall of Fame!” he said.

Finally, the trade was made, and Ripken played third and was voted rookie of the year.

Later, when Lenn Sakata couldn’t hack it at shortstop, Weaver wanted to give Ripken a try. Ripken? The 6-foot-4 Cal Ripken? Cal said: “In basketball, didn’t the small guy used to always bring it up? Well, if you can have Magic Johnson be a point guard at 6-9, why can’t a shortstop be 6-4?”

Cal covers just as much ground as anyone, but because he’s lanky, it doesn’t seem that way.

Let’s compare shortstops. Ozzie Smith vs. Cal Ripken.

“I’m not flashy, No. 1,” Cal said. “I don’t make flashy plays, but I’m fundamental. People say, ‘How can you compare Ozzie Smith to Ripken? Ripken can’t go in the hole.’ True. So I have to be successful other ways.

“For me to be successful, I have to pay attention to signs, see if our pitchers have good stuff and know all the batters. I wish I didn’t have to do all that, but I do.”

Sparky Anderson, Detroit’s manager, says the difference in the American League is that there’s more hitting because of smaller ballparks and the designated hitter. In the National League, there’s more pitching and defense. The comparison involves Ripken and Smith.

“You see it so much,” Anderson said. “For instance, over there (in the National League), you see Ozzie Smith. I don’t think anybody would deny that he’s maybe--maybe--the greatest shortstop of all time. . . But when he hits the ball, and Ripken hits the ball, what’s going to happen? See, I think that shows which league is the strongest.”

Ripken can hit for average, for power. One time, he was in a little slump when Weaver called him in and said, “Why aren’t you hitting more homers?”

Word got back to Calvin of what Earl had said to his son. Calvin wouldn’t talk to Earl for three days. Meanwhile, Weaver saw Vi at a banquet and said: “Vi, you’re Cal’s hitting coach, right? How come he isn’t hitting more homers?” Vi bristled.

The next day, Cal hit two homers in one game.

These players were still active the last time Cal Ripken Jr. missed an inning, in June of 1982:

Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Stargell, Johnny Bench, Bobby Murcer, Joe Ferguson, Ferguson Jenkins, Willie Montanez, Joe Rudi, Sparky Lyle, Stan Bahnsen, Woody Fryman and Randy Jones.

How does he do it?

He eats right. When he left for the minors, his mom gave him a handwritten list of recipes.

“The only thing we stressed to him is that he made sure he ate well,” Vi said. “We didn’t want him to become a victim of fast food. The meal money in the minors is pathetic. We told him there were other things he could skimp on, but success on the field comes, in part, by what you eat. We told him if he ever needed money, let us know. He took our advice.”

Cal said: “Yeah, she sent me away with recipes, but they all didn’t always come out right. But I ate them.”

He gets the proper rest. But he’s a little unlike Calvin, who rises about 6 a.m. every day, goes out to work in the garden or on the lawn, then is back for breakfast.

“He’s almost like a farmer,” Cal said.

Kelly answered Cal’s hotel phone Monday. Was Cal awake yet? “He just woke up,” she said.

It was 11 a.m.

But, essentially, Cal is Calvin, which isn’t so bad if you like guards from Buckingham Palace.

“Oh, Cal isn’t as energetic as Calvin,” Vi said. “He has the ability to sit down.”

Oh yeah?