Of the 2632 consecutive games Cal Ripken Jr. played in, I was fortunate enough to see about 40, give or take. The first was in Memorial Stadium in August 1991, a game played against the Texas Rangers. I was ten with minimal knowledge about baseball, but I was overcome fairly quickly by the magic of being at a major league stadium. Show me someone who doesn't like baseball, and I can show you someone who never visited a ballpark before the jadedness of adolescence and adulthood set in. I remember little of that first game beyond the feeling, but in many ways that's all any ballgame really is.
I frequented the new Oriole Park at Camden Yards over the next several years, attending eight or ten games a year. As my interest and knowledge of baseball grew, I came to respect and revere Ripken. In my mind, he was and always will be the quintessential ballplayer: he took the game seriously but never seemed to lose sight of the fact that it was a game. Every time I saw him in interviews on television, always modest, he had that look in his eye like the kid entering the ballpark for the first time. Like he still loved the game and what it stood for.
I watched from home on September 6, 1995, shortly after entering high school, as Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's unbreakable record, playing in his 2131st game. As I sat in the living room, dining on crab cakes and Coke, I watched Ripken do exactly what people everywhere are paid to do: he showed up for work. And he didn't disappoint, hitting a home run into the left field bleachers in the middle innings.
In 1996, when the Orioles played the Yankees in the ALCS, I was there for the final game 5, long after a young fan named Jeffrey Maier and a blown Rich Garcia call had deflated whatever momentum the O's might have had. Few likely remember that the final out in the game was recorded by Cal Ripken. On a grounder to shortstop, he ran as fast as he could to first base, almost beating out the throw from a young Derek Jeter. In my young mind, I still swear he did, but Garcia called him out. Still, that was Ripken, hustling even though the game was out of reach.
The final game I saw Ripken play in was 9 years after the first, at Edison International Field in Anaheim. Ironically, the only two games I saw the Orioles play that weren't at Camden Yards were the first and the last. It was long after the streak had ended. Ripken was obviously nearing retirement, and had made the transition from shortstop to third base. The Orioles hadn't been in the playoffs since 1997, and they were pretty much out of it by that day in August 2000. In an early inning, Ripken made an amazing stop and throw to catch a runner at first. The top half of the next inning, he hit a home run. And when he did, even as he watched the ball sail over the fence, he dropped his bat and began trotting around the bases. No Barry Bonds-style poses or struts. No steroids necessary to pole that ball.
Cal Ripken Jr., along with fellow inductee Tony Gwynn who I saw play once in San Diego, represent the last vestiges of the game I grew up loving. Two more deserving Hall of Famers you aren't likely to find. To them and many others, I remain eternally grateful. And even if some of the current players lack the integrity of Ripken and Gwynn, I am reminded always of the greatness I have seen, and of quite possibly the truest movie quote ever spoken:
"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."
(
Washington Post article about Ripken's election.)
