Ripken Brings Baseball Good Cheer

The inconspicuous, inexpensive vans that will whisk Cal Ripken Jr. from his undisclosed hotels to history are all gassed up. Ripken, too, is on the move. No surprise there.

The man who never bumps his knee, never catches a cold and never pulls a hamstring, the man who revels in day games after night games, who never even thinks about playing hooky, is 109 games away from breaking Lou Gehrig’s 56-year-old record of playing 2,130 consecutive games. And for that, baseball is ready to celebrate.

In an age when at least one player has missed games for sleeping wrong on his eyelid -- Chris Brown, the anti-Ripken, once did that -- and several others have provided similarly silly reasons for sitting out, Ripken is into his 13th season with perfect attendance. After a sad, sorry past year for his beleaguered, oft-criticized sport, Ripken surely will provide something to cheer. In their most hopeful moments, even baseball people wonder whether the streak might be their needed tonic.

Baseball is in dire health, something Ripken can’t possibly relate to. While Ripken’s sport took an extended break last Aug. 12, missing 51 days, Ripken -- in striking contrast -- hardly ever has skipped an inning since he stepped in at third on May 30, 1982, for Floyd Rayford, a man of startling girth, unlike his fit replacement. Possessor of soft hands and a quick bat, Ripken, graying and balding, does look every bit his 34 years. The nickname Junior seems obsolete now, although the appearance belies inhuman energy and stamina and will.

Baseball’s 1995 schedule has been gerrymandered so that the magic moment will come in Baltimore, Ripken’s hometown, Sept. 6 -- near Labor Day. Perfect. But remember, please, don’t stand and cheer until the fifth inning, because the game must be official before history is recorded.

People already are applauding. There is nary a soul who thinks Ripken will miss a game between Opening Day and history. “To me, it’s probably the best thing for baseball, especially right now,” Tigers manager Sparky Anderson said. “It’s going to give people a chance to focus on something good. It’s going to give baseball real stature again.”

At times during the streak, when Ripken’s bat wasn’t as healthy as he, there were instances when a few folks told him to give it a rest. That hurt him. But now, when baseball needs Ripken more than Ripken needs the record, no one would dare suggest such a thing. The streak has become bigger than the legend, who himself has completed the graceful transition from human.

“It seems like it has gathered some positive momentum,” Ripken said. “Maybe that’s the reason I’ve become a little more at peace in dealing with it or accepting that it even exists. I think I fought it for years, that it wasn’t my overall identity and it wasn’t something I set out to do. Now I think I’ve accepted that it’s part of what’s going on. I still have to try to concentrate on doing what I do, and that’s playing on a daily basis.”

He credits his father, former Orioles manager Cal Ripken Sr., for his love of baseball and particularly for his refusal to miss even one day. In a phone interview from his home in Aberdeen, Md., Ripken Sr. recalled the hurt of the criticism when his son wasn’t playing his best but was still playing. “That was unjustified,” Ripken Sr. said. “Everyone gets tired at one time or the other. That doesn’t mean they can’t help the ballclub. Hitting is not everything. There are other phases of the game. I know if I wrote a lineup card without him, it would hurt like the dickens to get beat 2-1 knowing that he could have done something.”

One of the great things about the streak is that Ripken is taking no shortcuts. In any comparison to the great Gehrig’s streak, Ripken stacks up. He started all 2,009 games, and only six times did he depart before the seventh-inning stretch, including two early ejections. Gehrig came out early 69 times, and twice was only an in-game substitute for Fred Merkle. Ripken has played 99.2 percent of the Orioles’ innings (18,139 of 18,287).

Ripken, baseball people always note, also plays a far more demanding position than Gehrig played. A shortstop will experience violent second-base collisions and the occasional scary outfield smash-up. A first baseman can almost always stay out of the way if he chooses. “If he was a first baseman and had pinch-hit appearances and he was going out of the way to get the record, I would want it to remain in Lou Gehrig’s name,” Reggie Jackson said. “To me ... two thousand games at shortstop

One big difference between Gehrig and Ripken was timing. The world was different 56 years ago. “It was easier in Gehrig’s time. The press (no TV, no all-sports radio) ... the traveling (no cross-country flights)

When it became apparent that Ripken’s march was an inexorable one, that his baseball card and autograph values could only rise with each game, that Ripken was turning into a walking opportunity for overinterested collectors and overzealous sycophants, he began to stay away from the Orioles’ hotels. The club, concerned about team unity and appearances, had no choice but to agree. A man has to live.

So Ripken resides in secret hotels listed under a secret name, that of a favorite soap opera character. “Even going down the hall for ice, you never know what’s around the corner,” said Rick Vaughn, the one-time Orioles public relations director. “Kids will wiggle their way through vents to get an autograph. He’s doing it partly for his own safety. Security is a big issue now. You never know what might happen. If someone’s a lifelong Gehrig fan ...” At first, Ripken took limousine rides between the hotels and ballparks, but has since switched to plain vans after he was criticized in local newspaper accounts for the appearance of a stylish, solo lifestyle.

He has proved adept at getting around unnoticed, even at well-covered union meetings. At a meeting in New York last month, after some reporters discovered Ripken’s presence in a meeting room, they staked out a secret back-door exit. Ripken found another, more secret back-door exit and was spotted too late. He already was boarding a plain blue van that was waiting curbside. In the first of two staged news conferences this spring, he expressed some concern about the burgeoning scrutiny. He is a hard per son to know, people around the Orioles agree. His interviews usually reveal little about the man.

Once on the field, Ripken tries to avoid big contact, which makes sense because the team needs him on the field almost as much as baseball does. Vaughn said, “He’s so smart. He studied the position so well he knows how to get himself in position on every play, with maximum effort but the lowest risk of injury.” The real trick in this is ignoring the pain. Three “close calls” are documented by the Orioles’ publicity staff.

The first came April 10, 1985, in game No. 444, when he sprained his left ankle covering second on a pickoff try against Texas. He missed an exhibition against the U.S. Naval Academy the next day before returning the following day. Speaking of that sprain, Ripken Sr. said, “When you get it taped up and work on it, it kind of loosens up.”

The next real scare didn’t come until seven years later when on Sept. 11, 1992, in game No. 1,713, he twisted his right ankle while running out a double against Milwaukee. That time he didn’t miss an inning for a week.

Less than a year later, Ripken had what he considers his closest call. On June 6, 1993, in game No. 1,790, he twisted his knee when his spikes caught on the infield grass during a melee with Seattle. He couldn’t walk the next morning but managed to play that night.

“To me, I was raised with a work ethic and an approach in baseball or team sports in general, that the object of the team sport is to do whatever it takes to win, and it’s important to rely on your teammates to make that happen,” Ripken said. “And so therefore, it was important for me to be counted on by my teammates to be in the lineup every day. I approach each and every game with the fact that I am proud of the streak, for the reason that my teammates can count on me to be in the lineup.”

Ripken Sr. said, “He goes to the ballpark to want to play a ballgame. That’s the idea. You want people who want to play. He has always been that way. Even before pro ball, whether it be a soccer game or baseball or whatever, he always wanted to play.

“That’s a very important part of the game of baseball. It’s something he picked up being around the ballclubs, or being around me. You never think about how he has played that many games. If you sit and reflect, it’s very difficult to imagine someone doing that.”

His peers are perplexed. Remarkable, Paul Molitor called the streak. Phenomenal, Wade Boggs said. Amazing, said Don Mattingly.

“I know how hard it was for me to stay in the lineup for a year, much less 2,000-plus games,” Molitor said. “It shows tremendous athleticism. He has the perfect build for a shortstop. His size (6-4, 220) enables him to avoid a big hit, and if he does get hit he dishes out as much as he takes.”

Jackson, searching to explain the nearly inexplicable, said, “It took his mind. His strongest asset was his mind. He was determined to go to work every day and be present. I remember one time he sprained an ankle -- that’s mind over matter. When he gets out of the game, he has to be a spokesman for Diehard, Dura-flame or Duracell.”