Orioles’ Ripken Plays End of Streak Perfectly

He didn’t do it because he was hurt. He didn’t do it because he was tired.

Providing a fitting conclusion to a splendid summer of baseball sportsmanship, Cal Ripken Jr. willingly grabbed the most publicized piece of bench in sports history Sunday.

Simply because it was right.

Faced with declining skills, avoiding a potentially bitter fight with his beloved Baltimore Orioles, Ripken walked into his boss’ office Sunday and asked for a day off.

His first after 2,632 consecutive games. His first in 16 years.

In one startling moment, the iron-willed owner of perhaps the most unbreakable modern-day record in any sport became a couch potato just like the rest of us.

Well, maybe not exactly like the rest of us.

He knew when he no longer belonged on the field every day. And, in a move that astonished fans nationwide, he came right out and said it.

“I think the time is right,” Ripken told Manager Ray Miller shortly before the Orioles’ game with the New York Yankees in Baltimore.

So Miller simply scratched his name off the lineup card and replaced it with rookie third baseman Ryan Minor.

“The emphasis should be on the team,” Ripken said later. “There have been times during the streak when the emphasis was on the streak. I was never comfortable with that.”

There was no official pregame announcement, no pregame press conference, no celebration. After showing up for work all these years with little fanfare, he sat down in the same manner.

In fact, Baltimore fans were so used to seeing him in the field at the start of every Oriole home game, it took many of them until after the start of the first inning to realize he was not at third base.

It was apparently the Yankees who noticed first. Even though there was just one out, they lined the top step of their dugout and gave him a standing ovation.

Ripken stepped out of the Oriole dugout, tipped his cap toward his rivals and returned to the bench. By then, the Camden Yards fans had also figured it out, and gave him their own standing ovation, which he also stepped out to acknowledge.

As usual, Ripken’s timing was impeccable.

He is 38, and finishing one of his worst seasons, with a .273 average, 14 home runs and 61 runs batted in. The latter two numbers are not considered sufficient for an everyday third baseman.

The Orioles, with a record $74.3-million payroll, were expected to contend for a world championship. But they will not even make the playoffs, mostly because of an aging roster that did not produce as it once did.

At the heart of that roster was an icon who, for the good of the team, needed to either start sharing his position with a talented youngster like Minor or give it up entirely.

And just who in Baltimore would tell Ripken to do that? And how ugly would it be if Ripken said no?

Ripken’s classy move will thankfully keep those questions unanswered while continuing a summerlong trend that has brought a lump to the throat of even the most bitter of baseball fans, and memories that will warm the hot-stove league in the cold of winter.

* Mark McGwire runs into the stands to hug the family of Roger Maris.

* Sammy Sosa runs out of right field to hug Mark McGwire.

* And now, an aging player who willingly abandons his main claim to fame because it would have been unfair to keep it.

“I don’t feel a sense of relief. I don’t feel much different,” Ripken said. “Now that I know what it feels like, I don’t want to sit and watch a game anymore.”

Ripken spent the evening joking with teammates, warming up outfielders before innings and, ironically, shaking hands with some fans in the stands.

He was shaking some of those same hands on Sept. 6, 1995, when he toured the stadium in a historic celebration of his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s decades-old record.

It was this emotional night that has been credited for the beginning of baseball’s comeback after a labor dispute that caused cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Much like McGwire and Sosa’s home-run chase has been credited with giving the game another jolt this year.

Yet while McGwire and Sosa have created history during the last six months, Ripken has been doing that sort of thing for 16 years.

His streak started on May 30, 1982, when Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president. It has spanned eight Oriole managers and hundreds of major league careers.

After Ripken broke the world baseball record for consecutive games with his 2,216th in 1996--passing a record held by Japan’s Sachio Kinugasa--he continued to downplay it.

There was the time, last season, when it appeared back spasms would keep him out of the lineup in Anaheim. Not only did he play, he hit the game-winning homer.

Then there was the time in 1993 when he severely twisted his knee in a fight with the Seattle Mariners. The next day, he didn’t even miss infield practice.

How great was the streak? How lucky was the sports world to have it accomplished by somebody like Cal Ripken Jr.?

Put it this way:

The new active leader in consecutive games played currently trails Ripken’s mark by 2,305 games, or more than 14 years.

He is that iron-mannered Chicago White Sox player named Albert Belle.