The Record Book: As the Hall of Fame Numbers Mount, Cal Ripken Jr. Looks Forward and Back

Brady Anderson hands Cal Ripken Jr. a copy of the Orioles' 2000 media guide, hot off the presses. The third baseman sits at his corner locker and studies the montage of pictures on the cover. Among grainy shots of glory days from the past, there are current images of him and Mike Mussina that are crisp and clear. Ripken notices that he actually appears twice. He points out the back of his shaggy-haired head on the fringes of the '83 World Series celebration. The vintage photos remind him of something. He summons a P.R. staff member and describes a photo that he wants to hang alongside all of the team photos that line the walls of the training room in his home in the heart of Maryland horse country.

“Oriole history means a lot to me,” he says. “Certain photos kind of stand out in your mind. I just had a vision about Boog Powell standing in this big, stainless steel tub with Champagne during a celebration. That was the kind of picture I wanted. You want to make it feel like where you spend most of your time, like a big league training room.”

While the photo may represent one of the corpulent Powell's rare appearances in a weight room, it will add to the Orioles' lore at the mini-sports complex at Ripken's house. In the lockerroom area, he wanted to display some mementos from his career.

“The intention wasn't to display all my stuff,” he says, “just to try to make it feel like a display case when you go into the lobby of a high school. You can see if they won the state championship in 1978,” which, incidentally, Aberdeen High School did behind Ripken's two-hit, 17-strikeout pitching performance in the Maryland Class A title game. “I just kind of threw some things in there from 2,131 in a certain way that would be like a trophy case in a high school.”

Nine hits shy of 3,000, the obvious question is whether Ripken has reserved a spot in the case next to his 400th home run ball from last September 2. But, he says, none of the balls from personal milestones are there. He certainly doesn't need a ball to recall hit No. 1 on August 16, 1981--“Dennis Lamp, line-drive in the hole.”

“I don't want to play down the significance of [the impending hit],” he says. “I'm proud of some of the things I've been able to accomplish in the sport. The only way to get 3,000 hits is play in a lot of games and do pretty well. To me it kind of signifies a long, productive career as opposed to a big number of hits.”

From 2,131 to 2,632 to his 400th home run, Ripken has a penchant for triumphant nights at Camden Yards. He admits a preference for getting his 3,000th hit in front of the hometown fans.

“I don't want to change the way the game is played, the way you're supposed to approach the game, for a milestone,” he says. “But, yeah, I'd like to get a lot of hits early. It would be great to have a celebration at home.”

Ripken would likely have become only the seventh player to reach 3,000 hits and 400 home runs last season had he not succumbed to the excruciating back pain that forced surgery on September 23. The procedure, which left him with an eight-inch scar on his lower back, alleviated nerve irritation and repaired a ruptured disc. In 1999, his first-ever trips to the D.L. came on the heels of the loss of his father, Cal Ripken Sr., to cancer on March 25. The convergence of off-field tragedy and his health problems tested him as no other season in his legendary career.

“I think last year was a learning experience for me baseball-wise and also person-wise,” he recalls. “I had to deal with the death of my Dad. That put life in perspective. That makes you really understand the pleasures of life itself.”

Despite the tumult of 1999, when Ripken was healthy he was able to post some of his most productive numbers ever, hitting 18 home runs in just 332 at-bats with a career-high slugging percentage of .584.

“Last year I proved in a lot of ways that I can still compete as a hitter,” he says. “I put a .340 on the back of my baseball card. I felt pretty good all the way around my game.

“Recreationally, I can play baseball forever, I think. Competitively at the very highest level, you can only play for so long until you lose that edge.” Ripken is keenly aware of time--whether in the stage of his career or the minutes remaining in his workout. He plays the only team sport that doesn't utilize a clock to regulate the pace of play, yet he's a stickler for punctuality. One afternoon, Ripken stares at a clock on the clubhouse wall.

“What time is it?” he asks. He looks at his wrist watch, perplexed for a moment until he realizes he is wearing a self-winding model that has remained idle and lost time. When it is noted that this is the first time in memory he has appeared confused about the hour, Ripken quickly grabs his cell phone, then pulls a sports watch from his gym bag and points to the proper time on both. As many observers make the assumption that this is Ripken's final season, he seems at ease if time is indeed pressing down on his career. “Sometimes you get too caught up in other things,” he says. “You look at it and say, ‘Why put pressure on yourself? You play the game to have fun. You've had a long career. You've had a great career so far. Why don't you really enjoy the time you have left instead of agonizing by worrying about what you are going to do from day to day or the pressure of the game?' You just kind of sit back and enjoy it for what it is. I think that's the peace that comes over you as a result of being able to put things into perspective for yourself. I think that happened to me last year.”

Ripken is so at peace that he has come to terms with the questions that dog him about retirement, queries that once raised his ire.

“Retirement is inevitable,” says Ripken, who will turn 40 on August 24. “It happens to everybody. It's not a sad thing, it's a fact of life. You want to be able to play as long as you can, as best you can. So I don't see it as a negative necessarily.”

Perhaps Ripken took a peek at what life after his playing days are over might be like when manager Mike Hargrove asked him to instruct his teammates on some early spring training fundamentals.

“He was giving instruction to the infielders on how our rundowns should be run,” says second baseman Jerry Hairston, who was 5 years old when Ripken ripped that infield single off Lamp. “Coming from him--a guy who has been around the game forever and the knowledge he has--we were all definitely listening.”

Ripken admits to a bit of a surprise at Hargrove's invitation to give his interpretation of the one-throw rundown and the reason you should never pump-fake a throw. It was a class he's been preparing to teach since the days when he woke up early on Saturday mornings to travel with his father to baseball camps that were taught by Senior.

“It's something I've been doing for a long time,” he says. “It's very good to understand what the principle behind the fundamental is and understand it a little bit deeper and work towards getting better at it. That's all he asked me to do.”

“I think in Grover's [Hargrove's] mind, there is a certain logic that sometimes if you hear it from a player it carries more meaning. If you hear the same instruction over and over again from a coach, you kind of go through the motions and you don't really listen clearly. All of a sudden, a player might say the same thing and you remember it. I think Grover's reasoning to have me do it was that it might have a bigger impact on the younger kids hearing it from me.”

Ripken taught even younger kids this spring; it was a common sight to see him sitting on a chair in the batting cage tossing BP to his 6-year-old son, Ryan.

“He's a good case study for me because you're able to put some of your theories to test in your own household,” the father says. “You want to understand what's inside the kid's head at 5, 6 and 7 years old. In order to teach fundamentals effectively, you have to put yourself into the body of a 6-year-old. Sometimes you've got to teach fundamentals and mask it by having fun, so they'll want to do it and want to practice it.”

Ripken devises drills for Ryan. For example, he sets up a hockey goal as a backstop. Wearing a catcher's mask, he pitches tennis balls to him from close range. Ryan pretends he is a goalie with a bat and to tries to hit his Dad with the batted balls.

“You kind of combine sports,” he explains while sitting in the Ft. Lauderdale Stadium dugout one morning. “It makes him laugh because you look funny with the mask on. He hits the ball back at you. The basic fundamental is you want him to stay on the ball and hit the ball up the middle. You're teaching him something--he's swinging a bat at a ball, teaching him hand/eye coordination--and he's having fun. You can't be afraid to be creative. Teaching-wise, I pay close attention to Ryan and what he is receptive to and what you can do physically to teach him, but more importantly to have things that I can try so that he will have fun and [things that] will keep his interest.”

Ripken views his workouts with Ryan as research for the Cal Ripken Division of Babe Ruth League Baseball.

“I'm going to try to figure out some different techniques I can give coaches to practice that can keep the kids' attention,” he says. “If you can give those tools to coaches around the country, then you can make real strides and keep the kids involved in baseball.”

Ripken's coaching pedigree inevitably leads to speculation that he will move right into a coaching or managing job once his playing days are over. That's something he says he hasn't given much thought.

“Professional baseball is my expertise,” he says. “I've learned a lot, I've had great teachers. I've paid attention to the game, then had actual experiences to match with all that teaching. I want to give that back in some way. I want to test myself in some ways, maybe as a manager at some point in my life.

“But immediately I value a little more flexibility in my personal life, being around my kids and my kids' events while they're still at home. So, I think I'll look for some ways to have an impact and give things back into baseball and still be able to be home the majority of time for dinner and be available for all my kids' activities.”

Ripken makes it clear that his focus is on Ryan and his 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, both now and in the foreseeable future. A glance at the scoreboard clock in center field tells him it is time to look for his son.

“I gotta get my boy,” he says before taking off through a tunnel to the clubhouse.