Unreachable Is Within Reach : Now Only 121 Games Shy of Gehrig’s Record, Baltimore’s Cal Ripken Jr. Tries to Maintain Concentration Despite Media Distractions

He was surrounded by cameras, microphones and notebooks as he sat on an elevated chair in the visitors’ dugout at Jack Russell Stadium on a warm April morning.

It was another in a series of news conferences designed to reduce the daily media demands and drain on Cal Ripken Jr. as he prepares to renew his pursuit of Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played.

A Baltimore Oriole official sat next to Ripken, offering a towel to soak up the perspiration.

Closing in on the final countdown, Ripken realizes the heat is just beginning.

No matter how many times he says this isn’t about Gehrig or The Streak, no matter how many times he says those 2,009 consecutive games are an extension of his work ethic, passion and approach, he knows he is going to be continually questioned about it, that his concentration is vulnerable distraction.

“I feel as good as I’ve ever felt in spring training,” he said. “I’m excited about the prospects of winning and returning to the field. I am trying very hard to approach my 14th season as I did my first, but I’m already having a difficult time looking on it as another season and I’m concerned by that.

“I don’t feel any extra pressure or anxiety, but I do feel the potential for distraction and I have to learn to deal with that. I have to find a way to get my work in and stay focused.”

Playing every game for 12 consecutive years and having lost the chance to play in 60 games because of the 1994 strike, Ripken is 121 shy of Gehrig.

If the schedule remains as it is, with no rainouts or labor stoppages, the Oriole shortstop will tie and break the record Sept. 5 and 6 at Camden Yards, with the Angels providing accompaniment. The Orioles are off Sept. 7 and scheduled to open a three-game series in Cleveland the next day, but the American League has reserved the right to switch those games to Baltimore if the schedule is disrupted in any way that delays Ripken’s historic date.

After eight months of a bitter and unresolved labor dispute, baseball needs Ripken and what he represents probably more than Ripken needs baseball.

Ripken maintains that he has never played simply to keep the streak alive, but if it takes the streak to showcase some often-misplaced values--commitment, dedication, determination--so be it.

“The fact that we keep track of records and consecutive games, I guess that’s part of the beauty of the sport,” Ripken said. “We’re able to make comparisons to different times, different years.

“We’re able to keep statistics and interpret statistics, and that’s part of the fun, but for me the streak is just an extension of my approach and my belief, the way I was raised, the environment in which I was raised. I guess you can call it a code of conduct, a passion and feeling for the game, and I’ve been lucky enough to carry it out for 14 years.

“I mean, if the manager wants me in the lineup, I don’t intend to ask out if I break the record. There’s another game on the schedule and another after that. I count on my teammates and am counted on by my teammates. I’m proud of the streak from that standpoint.”

A dozen years. Consider:

--A total of 3,372 major league players have gone on the disabled list while Ripken has kept playing.

--He has played the last 1,982 games at the demanding and often dangerous position of shortstop, a major league record for consecutive games at one position. The other 27 clubs have started 459 shortstops during that span.

--He has played 18,139 of the 18,287 innings his team has played during the streak, and he has played every inning of the last 904 games.

--Even in last year’s shortened season, only four other players--Paul Molitor, Frank Thomas, Mike Bordick and Jeff Conine--appeared in every game. Conine’s second-longest active streak of 277 games puts him about 10 1/2 years behind Ripken.

With all of that, it is unjust to characterize Ripken merely as durable and dedicated.

He is a two-time most valuable player who has averaged 24 home runs and 91 runs batted in during his 13 full seasons. He is second in the majors to Eddie Murray in RBIs over that span, second to Wade Boggs in hits and first in extra-base hits and he leads the American League in home runs. He also holds or shares 11 major league fielding records, and no Hall of Fame shortstop has a higher career fielding percentage, .979.

Said Davey Lopes, the former Dodger second baseman who spent the last three seasons as a Baltimore coach and is now on the San Diego Padre staff: “I’ve never been around an athlete who has shown the mental and physical toughness that Cal has. I can’t say enough about him. He comes early and stays late, never misses infield practice and never asks for a favor.

“I’d never take anything away from what Gehrig did or what Garv and Billy Williams did (Steve Garvey and Williams are third and fourth on the all-time list), but Gehrig and Garv were first basemen, and Williams was an outfielder. Cal plays a much tougher position and has a far tougher travel schedule than Gehrig. That’s why I think Cal’s record would never be broken, providing he breaks Gehrig’s.”

Ripken won’t be drawn into a debate about positions or eras or demands of a schedule that is longer than Gehrig played and forces him to go coast to coast, regularly starting games in different time zones at different times and often playing day games after night games.

“I guess our similarities rest in the fact that we seemed to share similar work ethics,” Ripken said. “The comparison probably ends there. He was a first baseman, I’m a shortstop. I consider him a great player, I don’t consider myself a great player.

“People have been sending me books and magazine articles about him, and I have some curiosity but I’ve turned away from learning more because I don’t want it to envelop my life. I want to try and maintain the purity of my approach.”

The approach was dictated by his father, Cal Ripken Sr., a longtime manager and coach in the Oriole system, from the major league level down. The stories have been chronicled, of how Cal Sr. would slap some tape or a chaw of tobacco on a cut or broken bone and keep going, of how he once took an electric drill to his bruised and swollen toe to relieve pain and pressure. Cal Jr. grew up at the ballpark. The lessons stuck.

On June 7, 1993, Ripken emerged from a brawl with the Seattle Mariners with a twisted right knee. He had trouble walking the next morning and told his wife, Kelly, the streak was over. But only Kelly and his parents saw him limp. He went to the park, ran some in the tunnels under the stadium, tested the knee in the basement batting cage and played about eight hours after telling Kelly the streak was over.

Said Frank Robinson, the Orioles’ assistant general manager: “He makes our trainers swear they won’t tell the manager when he’s got a bump here or there. He generally gets his treatment when no one else is around, even if he has to wait until 2 in the morning.”

Ripken is usually the last player to leave the clubhouse, often lifting weights long after midnight.

Said John Oates, former Oriole manager who manages the Texas Rangers: “The first thing you have to know about staying healthy is, it isn’t just luck. It doesn’t just happen. A lot of it has to do with the dedication Cal has to his profession and the hours he spends on his body.

Ripken has a weight room, batting cage and basketball court at his suburban Baltimore home. There are obvious physical demands, he said, but the mental aspect, “convincing yourself you can play every day,” is harder. He added: “Once you’ve done it and performed on a consistent basis, it becomes easier.”

Ripken said his size--6-feet-4 and 225 pounds--has served him well in collisions with catchers and baserunners intent on breaking up the double play. He isn’t taking it safety-first, on or off the field. His ability to cover the 44 steps over four flights of stairs from the visiting clubhouse to the field in the Minnesota Metrodome in only eight hamstring-challenging strides is legendary among American League players.

He is also among the Orioles’ best at jumping a clubhouse sofa from a flat-footed start, enjoys skating on wet concrete in his baseball spikes during rain delays and often challenges teammates to clubhouse wrestling matches, probably knowing no one is going to approach it very seriously until he passes Gehrig.

“Once he breaks the record, there’s going to be a line of guys waiting to beat the tar out of him,” Oates said, laughing.

Much of Oriole owner Peter Angelos’ refusal to field a replacement team stemmed from his desire to keep the streak intact. Ripken said he appreciated Angelos’ stance, but had asked the players’ union for no concessions on his behalf and would never have joined a replacement team to perpetuate the streak.

On that hot Florida morning, with his pursuit to resume in a few days, Ripken said he has a better grip on the quest for a record now, recalling times in the past when it seemed to be an albatross and skeptics said he should give it up, that he appeared tired and that it was affecting his performance, particularly his hitting.

“It was so foreign to me to have to defend my desire to play that I tended to fight it and let it bother me,” Ripken said. “It was as if the problem would be magically fixed if I came out of the lineup, but I always felt that would be running away from the problem. I was taught by my dad to figure out what was going on and fix it.

“I think I’ve matured since then and handle it better now. I think the streak has developed some positive momentum, and maybe that’s the reason I’ve become more at peace dealing with it and accepting that it exists.”

Should he forget during the new season, Ripken knows the media will be there to remind him.