This One’s a Topper

In his last at-bat on the day he turned 18, Cal Ripken singled to right field.

It wasn’t much of a hit, as John Shelby recalled. It fluttered over the head of a second baseman, then dropped at the feet of a right fielder.

But, a run scored, the game-winner for the Bluefield Orioles, a rookie-league team that played in West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains.

Ripken didn’t find it at all routine.

When he came off the field, his gray-blue eyes were wide and proud, his face alight in joy.

Ripken, Shelby recalled, was so thrilled by the victory, so consumed by the emotion of that hit, that he persuaded many of his teammates to meet on a local mountaintop.

There, they celebrated the lanky shortstop from Aberdeen, Md., and his astonishing enthusiasm for the simplest of feats.

Nearly 22 years later, on the evening when Ripken would hit a clean, sharp single for the 3,000th hit of his major league career, Shelby could not forget the Ripken of that summer in Bluefield.

He chuckled at the memory of that boy, and marveled at the man and player he became.

“He just was so excited about that hit,” Shelby said. “I don’t know why that hit stands out. I really don’t.”

Over the years, that bloop hit and the party that followed became a running joke for Shelby, who played center field for Bluefield, and Ripken.

“He knows that ball should have been caught,” Shelby said, laughing.

Ripken and Shelby arrived in the majors in 1981. After a solid career, Shelby retired in 1992.

Ripken, it is fair to say, continued on.

He once played in 2,632 consecutive games, somewhere along the line becoming a lock for the Hall of Fame. Last season, he hit his 400th home run. And Saturday night in Minneapolis, he lined Hector Carrasco’s pitch into center field, made a dead town like baseball again, and surrounded himself with teammates.

He was on that mountaintop. Again.

Shelby, now a coach for the Dodgers, turned serious.

“He was,” Shelby said, “the one who was destined to do what he’s done.”

That, probably, is why Shelby recalls the hit so vividly. It was the day Shelby saw something rare in Ripken. Maybe it was greatness, maybe it was passion.

Perhaps, it was something different.

Davey Johnson managed Ripken for two seasons in Baltimore. The years ended poorly and not unlike all recent regimes there: The manager goes, Ripken stays, the organization sags a little more. Johnson, the Dodger manager, resigned after the 1997 season despite guiding the Orioles to their only division title of the past 16 seasons.

Johnson called “a crock” recent and steady allegations that Ripken routinely undermines the authority of his managers.

It was Johnson who undertook the task of moving Ripken from shortstop to third base, which Ripken resisted.

“I learned,” Johnson said, grinning, “that there was someone more stubborn than me.”

After a pause, he added, “But, I don’t mean that in a negative way at all.”

So stubborn was Ripken that he did not come out of the lineup for 17 seasons. He played despite twisted ankles and sprained knees and a chronically sore back that required surgery in September.

He racked up hits and games and All-Star appearances (17) and MVP awards (two) and developed a huge following.

Ripken played every day because, to him, that is what baseball players did. As a result, he has 3,000 hits.

When the milestone came, Shelby didn’t need to see it. He didn’t need to see Ripken wave to the crowd or smile or take the slaps from his teammates. He remembers what Ripken’s joy looks like, what it sounds like.

“That 3,000th hit,” he said, “I think it’s going to be just as exciting to him as that game-winning hit.”

And Shelby laughed. He was in Bluefield again. They both were.