Backbreaker Position May Be Ripken’s Streakbreaker

The end of The Streak is arriving. If you put your ear to the infield dirt, you can hear it coming. Slowly, inexorably, one year at third base is doing to Cal Ripken what 15 years at shortstop couldn’t. It’s wearing him down.

Recently, Orioles Manager Davey Johnson removed Ripken after seven innings of a game that Baltimore led by six runs. “I was trying to preserve” Ripken, explained Johnson. “I asked him, ‘Is your back hurting you?’ He said, ‘A little bit.’ When your back is in spasm, that’s the most debilitating thing you can have.

“The first four innings, he looked like he needed back surgery. But toward the end, he loosened up. . . . I figured he’d had enough. He’s said that he’d let me know. But I’ve come to know that with him, he never lets you know.”

If you’ve played in 2,408 games in a row, but your manager thinks you look like you “need back surgery,” what are the odds of reaching 2,500?

Ripken maintained again recently that his recent back spasms “aren’t related to playing third base.” He says it’s a recurrence of a nagging career-long problem that flares up a few times every season. This season, at third, the demands for a deeper crouch and more reckless head-first dives after hard smashes were shaking up the old Ripken spine.

“Shortstop, to me, was not demanding physically,” said Ripken. “To me, third base is very demanding physically. . . . It requires you to dive and hit the ground. Early on, I had a lot of back soreness. I was just getting used to the nature of the position.”

Most likely, he’s made his peace with playing third base, including the increased pain. And he’s trying stoically to avoid controversy. The switch is a done deal. So, live with it.

But it didn’t have to be this way.

Ripken will be 37 next month. Neither his streak, nor the latter stages of his career, should be harder than they have to be. He deserves better. He’s earned more.

However, last year, the Orioles had to fix something that just wasn’t broken. And, in the process, it’s Ripken’s back that sometimes feels like it’s cracking.

When a baseball team makes a poor decision on an important issue, the negative ramifications of that mistake continue to send out ripples.

Last season, Ripken was an above-average defensive shortstop. This year, in all probability, he’d have been above average again. And next year, too.

But the members of the Orioles brain trust from top to bottom fell in love with the idea of proving how smart they were. They convinced themselves that Ripken had lost a step at shortstop, rather than focusing on all the steps he still had.

When the Orioles signed free agent shortstop Mike Bordick for three years for $9 million last winter, it wasn’t a total disaster. But wait. Give it a chance.

Bordick is playing exactly as he always has. He’s fulfilling his end of the bargain. Defensively, he’s about as good as Ripken. That’s praise. Bordick may have a hair more lateral range and he’s a sparkplug type. Ripken’s arm is stronger. He charged dribblers better and turned the double play harder.

Unfortunately, Bordick is, as should have been expected, one of the half-dozen least-productive offensive players in baseball. The best that can be said of his .267 on-base percentage, .285 slugging percentage, 13 grounded-into-double-plays and zero stolen bases is that they’re his career norm.

The Orioles should have known that Bordick was a plucky, popular Willie Miranda, not a big-ticket purchase. And they should have appreciated Ripken’s history of back spasms. He’s says he’s had seasons with “four or five” episodes.

You move a guy with back problems away from third base.

If the position switch had not been so controversial, with Ripken making it clear that he thought the move unnecessary, then the Orioles could have made the logical baseball moves a month ago when Chris Hoiles was hurt. How do you get more offense into the lineup until Hoiles returns? Obvious. Get Bordick out of it. Move Ripken back to shortstop. Get B.J. Surhoff back at third base, where he played last year. You’ve got plenty of outfield bats.

But egos would be bruised. Reputations tarnished. Past judgments called into question.

The Ripken switch is water under the dam. But that doesn’t mean that, just one final time, we can’t say what a lunkheaded move it was.

When a great offensive shortstop gets too old for the position, he should only make one final change to the position where he’ll end his career. Ernie Banks went to first base and stayed. Robin Yount switched to center field.

Will Ripken end at third? Or will the day come when he has to take his aching back to first base? Where, then, would Rafael Palmeiro go?

As usual, the person who may save the day when others act badly is Ripken himself. A normal human being might develop a chronic back problem at third base and make those who moved him there look awful. But sometimes Ripken does not seem entirely human.

Maybe he’ll just tough it out to 3,000, keep hitting .285 with 20-some homers and 90-some RBIs.

“Just when everybody else is tired and you figure he must be, too, Cal’s ready to wrestle,” says Johnson. “I would not have known that until I got here. But now I’ve seen it for myself. I’ll defend him to my last breath now.”

Nobody’s going to tell Ripken, who was 0 for 5 Thursday night and has three hits in his last 19 at bats, to take a day off. Not even Johnson. But, increasingly as he ages, Ripken is going to feel the weight of his Streak. He shouldn’t have to carry that burden on an aching third baseman’s back.