Every Day Is Father’s Day for the Ripkens

Baseball, the very thing that bonds Cal Ripken Jr. and his father, once threatened to pull them apart.

“I resented baseball for taking away my father,” said Ripken, the stellar shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. “Baseball didn’t allow him to spend much time with me when I was growing up.”

These days, when Ripken shows up at the clubhouse he is joined by his father Cal Sr., the Orioles’ third base coach, and brother Bill, who plays second base.

On average, the three spend eight hours a day together. A couple of decades ago, Cal Sr. was a minor league manager who usually left the house around noon and didn’t return until long after the rest of the family had gone to bed.

“When I played Little League baseball, all the fathers would come to the game and it would be my mom watching me,” said Cal Jr., 31. “In most cases, my mom was more knowledgeable about baseball than those dads were. But there was still something about not having your father there that was different, in a bad way.”

It didn’t get much better during the winter, when Cal Sr. had to work odd jobs because baseball didn’t pay him enough to support a family of six. That left the responsibility of raising the children to Vi Ripken.

“Let’s put it this way: I didn’t find it all that difficult or unusual,” Vi said. “You just do it and you don’t think about it. It was just as if their father was a truck driver--he was away from home a lot, and you just had to live with it.”

But there were times when the boys, particularly Cal, needed their dad around.

“Cal was one of those little boys who liked to be with his father,” Vi said. “As soon as he got old enough, and we could trust him to be OK alone, then (his father) took him to the ballgames. He loved it, too. I guess he just got tired of hanging around Mom.”

During the early 1970s, when Cal Sr. was the manager of a AA team in Asheville, N.C., Cal Jr. and Bill regularly joined him at the ballpark.

“It was an opportunity a lot of other kids didn’t have,” Bill said.

Cal Sr., 56, eventually became the Orioles’ bullpen coach, then took over at third base in June 1977. Cal Jr. was Baltimore’s second-round pick in the June 1978 draft and joined the Orioles in 1981. Bill was chosen in the 11th round of the 1982 draft, becoming a full-fledged member of the team in 1987.

That year, Cal Sr. became the first father ever to manage two sons simultaneously during the regular season. Even though he got fired during the Orioles’ 0-21 start at the outset of the 1988 season, Cal Sr. and his sons are still only the third trio from the same family to be in uniform at the same time for the same major league team.

Now they spend virtually every day together from February to October, making up for those lost days when Cal Sr. was on the road.

“It is ironic, that now I see my father much more than most people my age see their father,” Bill, 27, said. “I guess things have a way of balancing out.”

During the winter, Cal and Bill work out together on a regular basis. Cal Sr. and Vi occasionally drop by Cal’s house to play with their 2-year-old granddaughter.

In the summer, Cal Sr. and his two boys have a business-type relationship. When Cal or Bill step out of the batter’s box to get a sign, they see their third-base coach--not their father.

“Some of the neatness and excitement of being together on the same team has worn off a little bit,” Cal Jr. said. “We’ve done it for so long that it seems normal, almost ordinary.

“Sometimes, I see the father part come out, the fact that he’s proud of me. But for the most part it’s all business, it’s all baseball.”

Cal Sr. sees things the same way.

“I don’t even think about it,” he said. “We just happen to be in the same business at the same place. Maybe years from now, when I’m reflecting upon things in my rocking chair, I’ll smile about all this. But for now they’re just a second baseman and a shortstop on this ballclub.”

Just as the Ripken family has grown comfortable in the clubhouse, the Ripken brothers have learned to deal with the inescapable comparisons of their professional capabilities.

Cal is arguably one of the best shortstops ever to play the game. A sure-fire bet to ultimately gain entry into the Hall of Fame, he has twice captured the American League’s Most Valuable Player award and has played in more consecutive games than anyone in baseball history except Lou Gehrig.

Bill, on the other hand, is a rather ordinary player with 10 career homers and a lifetime batting average under .250.

“Is there any comparison between us? No,” Bill said. “Fans on the road say, “You’ll never be as good as your brother.” You know what? They’re right.

“Cal is a great player, one of the best ever. I’m just a guy trying to do his best. I’ll never be Cal, and don’t expect to be.”