No Surprises : Orioles’ Ripken Has Become Baseball’s Most Enduring Star by Staying Prepared

He is defined by the work ethic and commitment of the streak, but he is more than that.

Intuitive and analytical, say his friends.

Always prepared. Always competitive, they add.

“I don’t like to get involved in anything I’m not prepared for,” Cal Ripken Jr. said.

“It’s part of my general personality, and it carries over to baseball. My goal is never to be surprised. I consider it the worst thing that could happen.”

This was late in spring training as Ripken sat in a lunch room at the Baltimore Orioles’ training facility, preparing to leave Florida for the 1992 season opener in the team’s new stadium at Camden Yards.

The official name, after much debate, is Oriole Park at Camden Yards. But for Ripken it could be called a staging area for Cooperstown.

How appropriate it seems that, at 31 and coming off perhaps the greatest season ever by a shortstop, he has this new theater in which to:

--Continue his march on Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games, once thought unassailable.

--Strengthen his credentials as baseball’s most complete player and perhaps the most complete shortstop ever.

It is an exciting time for the Orioles, and Ripken shares in it, but when has that approach varied?

“When I think of Cal Ripken, I think of how we all were when we were 12 years old and wore our uniforms to school because we couldn’t wait for the game that day,” said John Oates, the Orioles’ manager. “When I think of Cal, I think of a 162-game season and 30 spring games and an approach that never changes.”

Well, there was one change. During the second half of the 1990 season, a disillusioned Ripken, concerned about his future, thinking he might be finished, altered his batting stance and approach at the plate.

What happened in 1991, billed by the club as “A Season to Remember,” because it was the last in Memorial Stadium, proved to be exactly that, but for another reason as well.

THE SEASON

“I came in with a bang,” Ripken said, thinking back to 1982. “Rookie of the year, a World Series my first year (actually, his second), an MVP the second year, and three or four good years after that.

“Then the team’s success started to tail off, and suddenly everyone who had been here when I came up was gone--Eddie Murray, Ken Singleton, Al Bumbry, John Lowenstein, Gary Roenicke, not to mention all the pitchers . . . Jim Palmer, Mike Flanagan, Scotty McGregor.

“It was a total rebuilding, and I was suddenly the only one with a track record in the middle of the lineup. I felt I had to do more than I probably could.”

With no protection behind him and little offense in front of him, Ripken began to lunge, lurch and swing for a home run every time up.

After batting .318, .304 and .282 twice, he batted .252 in ‘87, .264 in ‘88, .257 in ’89 and .250 in 1990. His home run and RBI totals remained respectable, but he batted .209 during three Septembers through 1990, and the critics howled, saying he was worn down by the streak, that he needed rest, needed to come out of the lineup.

“I was as frustrated as I’ve ever been in 1990,” he said. “I was at rock bottom, thinking I might be through. I mean, it wasn’t a matter of being tired. I just wasn’t myself at the plate.

“I had developed bad habits, trying to do too much, and the more I fought it physically, the more it became a mental problem.”

Born and raised in Baltimore, a city of few sports teams and fewer heroes, Ripken, who still lives there, carries a heavy burden.

Asked agent Ron Shapiro: “How do you satisfy everyone who knows you, thinks they know you and feels you’re a part of their life? It was as if Cal felt he was letting the family down.”

And the “family” wasn’t happy about it. They called the talk shows to express their disappointment and opinions. They wrote the newspapers. Scouts and former peers joined the cacophony.

Brooks Robinson said Ripken was changing his stance too much, trying to pull everything, which Ripken already knew.

Palmer said he was simply tired, showing the strain of all those games.

Frank Robinson, a member of the Hall of Fame and the Oriole manager during Ripken’s 1990 struggle, finally provided a voice in the wilderness.

Robinson watched, listened and remembered his own experience in 1965, when he batted .296 with 33 home runs and 113 RBIs despite an 0-for-22 streak that left him wondering if he would ever get another hit.

“The more you fail, the more you search, the farther away you get, the more doubts creep in,” said Robinson, now the assistant general manager. “The mental part is worse than the physical. You start to feel alone, as if you’re the only one who has ever gone through it.”

Robinson assured Ripken he wasn’t.

“I knew that, but to hear it from a player of Frank’s stature, to know he had struggled, too, meant a lot to me,” Ripken said.

Robinson and Ripken’s father, third base coach Cal, also began to make adjustments in Ripken’s stance. They spread him out, slowed him down, changed the height at which he held the bat, all aimed at eliminating the lunge and tendency to pull, allowing Ripken to use the whole field, as he had during his early years.

Ripken worked on it during the winter, batted .338 with five home runs and 20 RBIs in April of ‘91, and went on from there.

He batted .349 in May and .371 in June, then left a calling card at the All-Star game in Toronto, winning the home run contest with 12 in 22 swings and the MVP award with a three-run homer in a 4-2 victory by the American League.

He was later voted the league’s MVP for a second time, becoming the first player from a losing team--the Orioles finished sixth in the East at 67-95--to win it.

His final line featured career highs for average, .323; home runs, 34; and RBIs, 114, along with 210 hits and 46 doubles, each only one shy of his career highs. The achievement was more notable because Glenn Davis, signed to provide protection behind Ripken, was injured and sidelined most of the year.

It was also notable in that:

--Ripken became the first shortstop with at least a .300 average and 200 hits in a season, and the first with a .300 average and 40 doubles.

--He became the second shortstop with at least a .300 average, 30 homers and 100 RBIs in a season. Ernie Banks did it with the Chicago Cubs in 1958 and ’59.

--He became the eighth player with 20 or more homers in each of his first 10 full seasons, and the 10th player in league history with more than 30 homers and fewer than 50 strikeouts in a season.

--He was the major league leader in multi-hit games, extra-base hits and total bases, and the only American Leaguer to rank in the top 10 in hits, average, home runs, RBIs, doubles and slugging percentage.

--He also led the league in fielding percentage for the second consecutive year, led in putouts and chances for the fourth time, double plays for the fifth time and assists for the sixth.

Ripken, who has long since buried the theory that he is too big at 6 feet 4 and 225 pounds and too slow to play shortstop, also won an overdue Gold Glove for the first time, making only 11 errors in 806 chances after the league’s managers and coaches embarrassingly had voted the award to Ozzie Guillen in 1990, when Ripken had made only three errors and established the highest fielding percentage by a shortstop, .996.

Robinson shook his head as he reflected on Ripken’s season and said: “I’ve never seen a shortstop with Cal’s overall game. The only player I can compare him to is Banks, but he wasn’t the shortstop Cal is.

“I mean, we’re talking about a complete player, a guy who plays one of the most demanding positions, bats third and is in the lineup every day.”

For Ripken, only winning matters, but he called 1991 a storybook season. And the best part was, it proved he didn’t need the rest, that he can still go every day. He made that emphatic with a .320 average and 48 RBIs for the final two months.

“I made the critics eat their words, but I know it’s temporary,” he said. “I know the first time I have a slump, they’ll be back. But I think I’m much better prepared to deal with it now.

“Funny business, isn’t it? A lot of players get criticized now for not playing as much as people think they should, but I have to defend myself for wanting to play all the time.”

THE STREAK

It began on May 30, 1982, but the seed was planted long before that. There were bedtime stories told by a father who had been a minor league catcher for eight years and a minor league manager for 14. Stories about taping up fingers broken by foul tips, spitting a little tobacco juice on them and telling the umpire, “Let’s play.” It began with the boy thinking proudly how tough his father was and that “he would have had to break his back to stay out of the lineup.”

Then there was that snowy winter night at the family home in Aberdeen, Md. Cal Jr. was 16. Brother Billy, the future Oriole second baseman, was 12. Their father was rigging a plow to an old tractor when the battery went dead. The senior Ripken tried to crank the tractor by hand, but the engine backfired and the crank flew up, opening a gash on Cal Sr.’s forehead.

“I remember saying to my dad that we’ve got to go to the hospital,” Ripken said. “But he just shook his head, held an oily rag on it as he went to the house for a couple of bandages, went back out, got the tractor started and plowed off the snow. That’s Dad. Maybe you see now.”

See now why Junior has moved to within 550 games, or about 3 1/2 seasons, of Gehrig’s record? He has played 1,580 consecutive games during a streak in which he played 8,243 consecutive innings at one point.

The streak spans almost 10 years, during which the 25 other teams have started 371 shortstops. Ripken, in that time, has married, become the father of a daughter and seen almost a complete turnover of the Baltimore roster.

He is No. 2 on the longevity list now with only Gehrig ahead of him. But another 550 games? That’s more than three seasons’ worth. How does he even think about it?

“The streak didn’t begin as an obsession, and it isn’t an obsession now, “ Ripken said. “I’m proud of it, I think of it as an extension of who I am and what I am, but I can’t get caught up thinking about the Gehrig record.

“If the situation develops where I think I’m hurting the team and it would be better if I don’t play, I won’t. It’s that simple, but no one can make that call better than I can. No one knows how I feel better than I do.”

Not all of the Orioles’ games are played between the lines, but whether it’s a contest to see how many strides it takes to vault the 33 steps between dugout and clubhouse at the Metrodome, or the intramural competition of the 12-minute run during spring training, or a clubhouse baseball game with rolled-up socks during a rainout, or basketball on his back-yard court, Ripken “doesn’t ever want to lose,” outfielder Brady Anderson said.

In other words, his name is always on the lineup card.

As Oates said, “Everything is a game, a competition to Cal. I look up during batting practice and he’s leaping at the wall, trying to catch home runs.

“Here’s a guy who plays every game, and he has that same streak going in BP and infield practice. He never misses.

“I suspect that he probably gets upset at his daughter if she doesn’t crown him fast enough when they’re playing checkers. He’s that kind of competitor.”

Ripken is the most dedicated and competitive person that Flanagan, the veteran pitcher, said he has ever been around.

“He’s never content with what he’s doing at the moment,” Flanagan said. “He’s always thinking, always looking for that analytical edge. He might be the best baseball mind I’ve ever been around, as far as positioning and concept of the game. He has a rare combination of intellect and physical ability.”

Look, said Ripken, he grew up in a competitive family. Games were fun. His goal was to play professional baseball and go to the “Superstars” competition. When he got the invitation for the first time, he rejected it because he wasn’t prepared, and he never wants to be unprepared. That’s why he’s looking for that analytical edge, studying hitters, pitchers and teams.

His acknowledged mastery of defensive positioning allows him to compensate for suspect speed and agility, and there is only one way to acquire the edge, he said, and that is by being in the lineup every day.

“You can’t do it sitting in the dugout or reading a playbook,” he said. “By playing, experiencing ground balls, runners, hitters and situations, you learn to prepare for each hitter, each count, each pitch and even each potential injury.”

At a high-risk position, Ripken has maintained the streak by avoiding injury. He suffered a twisted ankle on the second day of the 1985 season, when the streak wasn’t yet thought of as the streak, but the Orioles were off the next day.

“I could never have played,” he said, but by game time the next day, the swelling had subsided.

Frank Robinson smiled.

“We played in my day because we didn’t know any better,” he said. “We thought the guy on the bench would take our job. Cal goes about it with the same hunger. It’s a whole new breed today, but he’s a throwback.”

A throwback increasingly locked in the context of the streak, or as Ripken, who plays them 162 at a time, said, “I never think of the game ending because there’s always another one.”

THE SUPERSTAR

The Ripken Adult Learning Center to combat illiteracy in the Baltimore area was funded by a $250,000 grant provided by the Oriole shortstop and his wife, Kelly. He donated the van he won as MVP of the All-Star game to the center, promotes a Reading, Runs and Ripken program and is consistently involved in raising money for the center and other charities, although he never sells his autograph.

Generosity is one measure of the superstar. Statistics are another. At his current pace, he projects to passing the numbers of every Hall of Fame shortstop, except Honus Wagner in certain hit and stolen-base categories. One other measure of the superstar in the 1992 baseball market is salary.

Ripken will be “underpaid” at $2.1 million in 1992, but that will soon change because he is eligible for free agency at the end of the season. It is inconceivable that the Orioles will let this Baltimore landmark leave, but they will have to match or beat the $7.1 million annual extension the Chicago Cubs recently gave his middle infield counterpart, Ryne Sandberg.

Neither Ripken nor Shapiro will talk about the contract. It is Ripken’s style to watch his words on all things. He has never criticized an opponent or an umpire publicly. He was even diplomatic when his father was replaced as Oriole manager six games into the 1988 season.

Shapiro, in contrasting the Ripken brothers, describes Cal as introverted and analytical, Billy as extroverted and reactive.

Said the laconic Cal Sr.: “I don’t think of the family side of it. I have my job and they have theirs, and a lot of time my mind is on 23 other players. I managed so many young players during 14 years in the minors that I look on all of them as sons.”

In other words, the senior Ripken said, he sees only a second baseman and shortstop when he studies the Oriole infield, although he added that great work habits and the ability to adjust have put Cal Jr. in the class of Banks.

“What other shortstops have had that kind of power and production?” Cal Sr. asked.

What other shortstop has had a father and brother to lean on after hitless nights and rare errors? Though still special, the novelty of being only the fourth family to put three members in the same major league uniform at the same time has worn off, said Cal Jr.

“I’ve become more conditioned to thinking of Dad as a coach rather than father and Billy as a player rather than brother,” Ripken said. “Having them there for you has a lot of pluses, but we recognize this as a job and everyone needs their space.”

It is Cal Jr. who has fashioned a special space and time, but a superstar?

“I know I have the respect of my peers,” he said. “I know I have some degree of talent. I don’t think I’m one of the great talents in the league and I don’t want to start thinking I’m a superstar, because I’ve seen what that can do.

“My advantage is that I know the game because I grew up in it. I had a great teacher in my dad and was able to sit in the clubhouse as a kid and talk to a lot of great players, but my only goal is to be consistent. People ask me if I can have another year like last year and my answer is that it’s possible because I’ve done it once, but it’s also unrealistic.”

Oates and the Orioles will take a reasonable facsimile. “Cal may not have the pure power of a Canseco,” Oates said. “He may not have Shawon Dunston’s arm or the ability to come in on a ball like Ozzie Smith. He doesn’t do anything that wakes up an opponent. All he does is beat them--with his glove, his bat and his head.”

Some are still surprised by that, but not Ripken.

Not the man who never wants to be that unprepared.