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player ready...Lou Gehrig, two years before his tragic death at 37, told an overflow Yankee Stadium crowd, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles had reason to be grateful last Thursday when he and his family celebrated Thanksgiving.
“I’m thankful that I’ve been able to be healthy,” Ripken said in a telephone interview from his home in Reisterstown, Md., a few hours after he had carved the turkey. “A lot of people take their health for granted.”
As most schoolboys know, or should know, Ripken is the Lou Gehrig of our time, a “Quiet Hero” who last season continued in pursuit of the Yankee Hall of Famer’s consecutive-game record. Gehrig played in 2,130 successive games, a record that appeared to be unassailable, even more difficult than Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game consecutive hitting streak.
Ripken is gaining on the Iron Horse; his streak is up to 1,897 games. Barring injury, he will pass Gehrig in June 1995. Last season he sat out for only eight innings, the 12th year he has played the full schedule.
“It’s just a product of my efforts over the years, an accumulation of my approach to the game,” Ripken explained. “I’m proud of it, but it was not something I set out do. It’s never been my primary goal.”
As Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated reported, Ripken has become the Gehrig and Garbo of baseball.
In an effort to avoid his multitude of worshipers when the Orioles are on the road, he stays at a different hotel under an assumed name.
“It’s not something I like,” Ripken said. “Getting my rest is important. Otherwise, the phone would never stop ringing.”
Ripken doesn’t like to talk about the streak. Nor does he read about Gehrig.
“It would be counterproductive,” he said. “I don’t want to become obsessed by it. That’s not the most important part of why I play. I try not to think about it.”
Still, Ripken acknowledges that now, during the off-season, he finds himself “with some idle moments and sometimes reflects on the happenings of the past season.”
Except for the absence of a World Series ring, he has had a glorious career: Rookie of the Year, two Most Valuable Player awards and two Gold Gloves. He also holds the one-season major-league record for fewest errors by a shortstop, three, in 1990.
Whereas Gehrig played first base, an easy defensive position, Ripken has been at short. Other than catcher, shortstop, because it is in the middle of the action, is the most susceptible position to injury.
“I’ve had a lot of nagging injuries and some scares,” he said.
The latest scare occurred last June 6 when the Orioles had a big free-for-all with the Seattle Mariners. Leaping into the fray as a peacemaker, Ripken twisted his right knee when his spikes caught on the infield grass. The knee swelled, but the next night, he was in the lineup and had one hit and two walks in four appearances.
It wasn’t one of his best seasons. In mid-June he was barely hitting his weight. He hit .292 after the All-Star Game break and finished at .257, 20 points below his career average. But he had a typical power year: 24 home runs and 90 runs batted in.
He is enjoying the off-season and has had two vacations; one for the two kids at Disney World, the other, in the Caribbean, for he and his wife, Kelly.
He is now back at work, lifting weights, hitting and throwing baseballs, and playing basketball. He has his own gymnasium, complete with a batting cage, in a separate building adjacent to his house. Usually, three or four big-league players, some of them former teammates, work out with him.
Has the streak changed his approach?
“I hope not,” Ripken replied. “I’m only concerned right now with the first game of next season, and after the first game, it’ll be the second game. I try not to look too far ahead. People are always asking what I’ll do when the streak ends. I tell them I don’t know the answer. I suppose I’ll just keep playing. I’m a ballplayer. I’m just doing what I know how to do.”
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It’s much more difficult, of course, for the underprivileged to be at their best and play.
Which is why the Tribune Holiday Fund makes grants to help the homeless, the hungry, the mentally retarded and children and adults suffering from abuse.
Last year, nearly $2 million was contributed to the fund. Unfortunately, there still are abused children and adults and homeless, hungry and mentally retarded people who need help. You can use the accompanying coupon to send a contribution to this year’s fund.