Ripken Gave Baseball, Fans Renewed Vigor

Hard to believe a third baseman on a team going nowhere taking a late-season game off could be a bigger story than Mark McGwire hitting his 65th home run.

Sorry, Big Mac. That third baseman was Cal Ripken Jr., and the last time he didn’t start a game was May 29, 1982. So the number we’ll be discussing today is 2,632, the final tally for Ripken’s consecutive games record after he sat out Sunday’s game against the New York Yankees.

Ultimately, it will be a more important number than however many home runs McGwire winds up hitting this season.

If McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s home run bashes have revived interest in baseball this year, then Ripken deserves credit for keeping the pulse beating during 1995.

He didn’t do it with an awesome power display. His achievement was simply doing what he was supposed to do, showing up and working every day the schedule required him to.

That struck a chord with fans, who needed a reason to believe in the sport again after the damaging strike of 1994. As Ripken continued his march toward Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games, the common refrain was that he was saving baseball.

Ripken did more than his part. He never was a huge ally of the media, but he dutifully held a news conference his first day in every city that year because he knew baseball needed all the positive publicity it could get.

More important, he geared the bulk of his outreach directly to the fans. He would sign autograph after autograph, even staying into the early morning hours to accommodate fans after one game. And then he came out and played the next night. And the next and the next. “His [record] was more immediate and more impressive to me, to do what he did,” said Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina, who, by way of comparison is the Angels’ current leader with 145 consecutive games played. “And to do it in that time frame was incredible. I think he saved the game and brought a lot of people back, and McGwire and Sosa just added on to that.”

As a sportswriter for The Washington Post who occasionally filled in for the Baltimore Oriole beat writer in the 1995 season, I spent most of the year thinking The Streak was an overhyped, meaningless record. What kind of record is just showing up?

I kept saying I didn’t want to be anywhere near Camden Yards the week he broke the record. Yet I found myself watching on the night he tied Gehrig’s mark of 2,130. And I found myself captivated by the crowd’s cheers, by the timeliness of Ripken’s home run that night.

The next day I was in the office and my boss had an extra press pass for the game and asked if I wanted to go. I said “Yes!” before he finished the question.

That night, Sept. 6, 1995, was one of the most magical sporting events I’ve witnessed. I’ll never forget my view from the left-field auxiliary press box, looking in at the pyrotechnic display of flashbulbs going off every time Ripken came to the plate.

It turned out the very thing I had once thought made The Streak so unimportant--it’s predictability--is what made the night so special. The reaction of the fans wasn’t spontaneous, it had built up over 13 years.

What an outpouring of love. Standing ovations for every at-bat. A humongous cheer when he hit a home run.

Then came the ovation when his 2,131st straight game became official. The fans stood and cheered for 22 minutes and 15 seconds, cheering through eight curtain calls and the memorable victory lap.

DiSarcina was there with the Angels. He didn’t play because of an injury, yet still called that “The single most important day that I’ve had in baseball.”

“Electricity-wise in the ballpark . . . just the moment,” he said. “You knew history was in front of you. I remember looking down at my arms, and I just couldn’t get rid of the goose bumps.”

I’ve talked to reporters who covered both Ripken’s 2,131st straight game and the occasion of McGwire’s 62nd home run and they say Ripken’s night was more memorable.

After the game, Joe DiMaggio put a definitive stamp on the evening when he told Ripken that his Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig, would be proud of his durability. Really, that was the most meaningful tribute of the night.

On the flip side of that comment, I was in Miami covering a game between the then-Washington Bullets and the Miami Heat. Ripken, a huge basketball fan and player, made the trip over from the Orioles’ spring training site in Fort Lauderdale. We chatted at halftime and he wondered where Chris Webber was. I explained he was back in Washington with a back injury.

“He gets hurt a lot, doesn’t he?” Ripken said.

He wasn’t trying to be critical, but that’s a pretty damning statement coming from Cal Ripken.

Because Ripken never saw why a nagging injury or fatigue should be an excuse to stay out of the lineup. Pride kept him in the lineup, no doubt, but it was also commitment.

Based on what we’ve seen this year, it would be foolish to say his record is unbreakable. It’s still tough. How many people can work seven straight months for 16 straight years in any job?

Someone could step up and hit 70 home runs next year.

But Albert Belle, who now has the longest active streak with 327 consecutive games, would require more than 14 years to break Ripken’s mark.

How hard is it to stick around that long? Only 17 players who played in 1982 are still in baseball.

Ripken didn’t just stick, he stayed in the lineup. And he gave baseball fans a reason to stick with the game.