Cal's Curtain Call

Cal Ripken always has been known as one of the most focused players in baseball, as a man who has prepared meticulously for each game in his long career. He has the ability and commitment to concentrate intensely on every pitch, and his extraordinarily dedicated approach — to every inning he's played in — had been unswayable.

Beginning early this season, however, Ripken did not appear quite as focused. It wasn't his play on the field, really, but his mien off the field — in the Orioles clubhouse and elsewhere. He almost seemed distracted at times, as though he was involved in something else besides that day's or evening's game. For the first time, it was as though Ripken had a life off the baseball field, beyond the splendid career he had knitted together for 20 years wearing the Orioles uniform.

Thus it came really as no surprise on June 19 when the man who holds more Orioles' records than any other player said he would retire after this season to pursue other interests — his desire to teach baseball to kids and bring professional baseball to his hometown of Aberdeen — and to spend more time with his family.

“The last couple of years,” Ripken said at a press conference a day after his impending retirement was disclosed by The Washington Post, “I have missed being away from home. I miss my kids' activities, and it seemed like the passion — and maybe there was a substitute while I was hurt — but I was getting into other things — my youth initiatives, my teachings — and I found out that my energy and the challenges before me … energized me the same way that baseball did when I walked into the ballpark as a rookie.”

And down the road, Ripken admitted, when his daughter, Rachel, 11, and his son, Ryan, 7, have left home, he thinks he has something to offer to major league baseball — perhaps as a manager, a coach, a front office executive or even possibly in some ownership capacity.

Ripken grew up the son of a baseball professional — his father was longtime Orioles coach and manager and minor league manager Cal Ripken Sr. — and he knew how tough it could be on kids to lose their parent to the baseball schedule for more than half of every year. He didn't want his kids to have the same experience, so he's always said he wanted to spend time with them when his playing career ended.

“The biggest thing is,” he said in discussing his reasons for retiring, “that I've been doing this for a long, long time, and the baseball schedule is not really family friendly. The last couple of years, I have missed being away from home.”

Still, it is difficult to imagine Ripken leaving the baseball diamond if he were still playing everyday and hitting line drives all over the field as he once did with regularity. Would he really be retiring if he were hitting .320 with about 20 home runs instead of hovering just over the .200 mark and showing little signs of power? No, responded the proud — and sometimes stubborn — Ripken, his decision to end his playing career would still be the same, although “I might have been able to stick my chest out a little more” if he departed at a time when he was hitting better.

But the man whose No. 8 certainly will be retired after he hangs it up for the last time cautioned that he does not see himself ever leaving baseball. “I don't think I'll ever divorce myself from the game of baseball,” he said. “Baseball is in my blood. I don't see this as an ending. I see this as a beginning, an opportunity or a chance. I am not stopping something. I am moving on. The reality is that players can't play forever. And I have always taken a pretty aggressive stance in trying to prepare for my next stage of life. I think the opportunities are unlimited. I want to energize kids to play baseball.”

Ripken has meant more to Orioles baseball than any other player — even than Brooks Robinson, his only true peer upon the Mt. Olympus of Orioles godhood. That's because Ripken has been largely credited with helping restore public faith in major league baseball with the grace and dignity he exhibited in breaking Lou Gehrig's all-time consecutive games streak following the devastating baseball strike of 1994-5. It's also because Robinson played in the Orioles glory years when the team was truly hallowed and he had plenty of help in making the Orioles great. Ripken stands virtually alone over the last decade and one-half as the face of the Orioles, at a time when the team's reputation has spiraled downward just as Ripken's has zoomed upward into legendary status. And Ripken has played in an era of hyper-media, where everything is blown way larger than life, while Robinson played in a simpler time, when sports celebrities weren't as ballyhooed as they are today.

(Eddie Murray perhaps also could have been bestowed godlike status in the Orioles Pantheon, but three factors have conspired against him. First, unlike Ripken and Robinson, Murray did not spend his entire career in Baltimore. Second, innate and subtle racism in society has robbed Murray of the respect and reverence he is genuinely due. And finally, Murray had a pricklier personality, especially with the press, than did Ripken or Robinson, and thus was viewed less glowingly, despite his prolific exploits on the field. Indeed, Murray was inarguably a better hitter than either Ripken or Robinson).

Despite Ripken's heroic status in Baltimore, it was time for him to retire. His skills clearly have diminished, and the Orioles are on a rebuilding campaign that will not be complete until after Ripken is grayer, balder and even less able to get the bat around on a Rogers Clemens fastball than he is today.

It is sad, in a way, that youngsters and others who have followed Ripken only the last few years will never know first-hand what a spectacular player he was. After all, most good or great players retire shortly after they turn 35. Ripken will lay his glove down almost two months after he turns 41. And despite putting up some excellent statistics during limited playing (because of injuries) in 1999 and 2000, Ripken's best years came before many of today's younger fans were even born.

It was two decades ago, in fact, when Ripken won the AL Rookie-of-the-Year award; and a season later that he was named the league's MVP after hitting .318 with 27 home runs, 102 RBIs and leading the Orioles — along with Murray — to a World Series Championship — as a shortstop. It's hard to remember in today's world of Nomar Garciaparras, Alex Rodriguezes and Derek Jeters, but when Ripken entered the major leagues, shortstops were considered good-field, no-hit players who were quick and small and lacking in power. At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, Ripken changed that image and is given credit for helping usher in the power-hitting shortstop of today's game.

But he was not just a hitter, even though he holds the career home run record for shortstops (345) and hit 21 or more for 10 consecutive seasons. He also was a great shortstop before age did what it does to all great athletes — slows them down. He owns 11 big league or AL fielding records, including the unbelievable feat of committing just three errors at short in 1990, for an all-time high major league fielding percentage of .996 for the position. He also won two Gold Gloves at shortstop and was the de facto captain of the Orioles defense.

Ripken's baseball obituaries were written by columnists more times than Elizabeth Taylor was married, but he just kept coming back and coming back to the point where he proved that the bat is mightier than the pen — writers finally conceded that they just should let Ripken alone. Perhaps his greatest season — even though he says 1983 was his best because that was his only year on a World Series champion — was 1991, a year after many scribes and scouts were saying he was through. He was the best player in the game that year, at the age of 30, winning the MVP of both the American League and the All-Star game, Major League Player of Year honors and a Gold Glove. He hit .323 (one of five years he exceeded .300) with 34 home runs and 114 RBIs.

“It must feel good to be in his shoes,” says longtime teammate and friend Brady Anderson. “He's one of the few pro athletes that gets to retire and not have any regrets, that feel like they left something out, didn't do something, didn't get something accomplished they could have if they'd only done this. He played every single day for 18 years. That must feel good.”

Ripken has had so many great years and moments that even he admits — other than his greatest memory, winning the Word Series in 1983 — his career at times seems to all run together. “When you look back,” he said, “sometimes it seems to all blend into one season.”

One of the things that always has made Ripken so special as a ballplayer is that he genuinely loves the game and appreciates his good fortune in having been able to play it at the highest level. While some players are almost contemptuous of the game, Ripken still adores it and is grateful for the opportunities he has had to play.

“I think if you were to write an ideal story for a baseball player, I think my story would have to be considered,” he explained. “I am a hometown guy. My dad was with the Orioles. As far back [as he can remember], baseball and the Orioles were it. I was able to be drafted against all odds with the Orioles, and then make it with the Orioles. And then have a long career with the Orioles. If you add up all of the odds against that happening, it is pretty remarkable. And along the way, there were many, many other good things that happened. I feel lucky to be able to play in the city, my hometown. It's been a very ideal situation.”