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Cal heading home Ripken reflects on latest milestone, addresses retirement
Posted: Tuesday April 18, 2000 11:03 PM
By Don Banks, Sports Illustrated BALTIMORE -- He has been in pursuit of history of some sort or another for so long now, the question was posed Monday whether Cal Ripken Jr. will know what to do with himself having drawn even and passed it. Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak fell in 1995. Ripken's 400th home run sailed out of Camden Yards last September. And Saturday night in Minneapolis, Ripken cleared what is presumed to be the final significant statistical barrier of his Hall of Fame career: 3,000 hits. For Ripken, the art of the chase has almost become part and parcel of his personna, and has represented a cottage industry for baseball and the Baltimore Orioles. But like the dog who catches the car, what's left when the thrill of the pursuit is gone? "I don't know," said Ripken, in a late-afternoon news conference at Camden Yards, where the Orioles were rained out against Tampa Bay in their first home game since Ripken became the 24th man to join the 3,000-hit club. "My plans are to just continue to do what you can do." In his slightly homespun, bland-is-beautiful sort of way, Ripken encapsulated his entire 20-year, 2,800-game career with that straightforward reply. What now? More of the same, with less fanfare hopefully. "I'm hoping that it will get to a normal environment, a normal atmosphere," said Ripken, whose career has been defined by the numbers he has amassed as much or more than any player in baseball. "I'm always a little embarrassed by the added attention that you receive, and taking away the focus from the actual game.
"But you go along for the ride. You go along to do your part. But I'm hoping things will die down and I'll be able to relax and not run with such a high level for a while. That's why in some ways it is a little embarrassing to get the kind of attention that I receive. I think I've had enough attention to last me four or five lifetimes." In some ways, by reaching Twins reliever Hector Carrasco for a solid single to center in the top of seventh at the Metrodome on Saturday night, Ripken merely transferred the focus from the particulars of when he would reach his milestone hit to the larger, more uncertain question of when his final hit, at-bat and game will occur. Without it being brought up, at least overtly, Ripken on Monday grappled with the question of when and where the end might come playing no word games to dodge the inevitability of the subject. Ripken, whose contract expires after this season, said nothing definitive about his future. But he said it oh, so well. "I've answered the retirement question a million times, and a lot of times people think it's a sad question," Ripken said. "It's kind of sad when you think of the other guys who have retired, the Jordans and the Gretskys and most recently, Marino and Elway. I think it's sad if you're a true sports enthusiast and you enjoy their performances and you enjoy watching them. There's almost a sense of loss when they're not there any more. "But I take the perspective, look at how lucky you are that you've been able to do this all this time, and you've been able to compete and you've been able to give something to the game that you think is so special. You've made a contribution that people might remember. I think that's a positive way to look at it. Realistically, you can't compete at the highest level forever. The only thing you can do is, you owe it to yourself and the people who watch to compete as long as you can. And if you can, you should." Ripken, whose recurrent back problems have cost him playing time in recent years, can and will be an Oriole as long as he cares to. The organization long ago realized it cannot push its most beloved figure on the topic, and the feeling is that Ripken's intense pride is the best possible indicator of the timing of his retirement. Always cognizant of his place in the game, and in Baltimore's pantheon of sports icons, Ripken, 39, has reached the stop-and-smell-the-roses portion of his career. Not that he hasn't enjoyed the view all along. "The fact that things have worked out for me the way they have, and I've been able to play as long as I have and live and play in a place that I choose and I want to play, those are all very special things and I'm very thankful for that opportunity," Ripken said. "I've always said all along that my career seems that of a storybook, and I'd like to keep the story going for a little while longer."
Although he has twice won the American League's most valuable player award, been to 17 all-star games, and played on a World Series champion in 1983, Ripken's marks of true distinction are celebrations of his longevity. The consecutive games played streak of 2,632, and becoming just the seventh player to have both 400 home runs and 3,000 hits. More than scale the game's lofty plateaus, he has outlasted them. Game by game, hit by hit. "I've had a long time to analyze about what the significance is [to 3,000 hits]," Ripken said. "And to me it an accumulation of a long and pretty productive career. You can't accomplish 3,000 hits in a season, or two seasons or even 10 seasons. "To me it was always important to be a baseball player. It was always important to be out there and play every single day, and it's important to play as long as you can. So that's what 3,000 represents to me. I guess it's more a celebration of the productiveness of your entire career, as opposed to one singular moment." The Orioles had scheduled their own celebration of Ripken's milestone hit before Monday night's game against Tampa Bay, but the weather delayed the ceremony at least another day. Uncomfortable in the spotlight, but never unwilling to spread the gospel of baseball, Ripken will go head bowed into another feting by the Orioles faithful. In essence he has been on a five-year ambassadorship for the game since breaking Gehrig's revered mark in September 1995. "I don't see it as a bonus for me personally. But I see it as continued celebration for baseball, and especially here in Baltimore, where we really care about baseball and care about the Orioles," Ripken said. "And that kind of celebration should continue. "[Moments like this] are special, and if this is one of those times, I'm happy that I'm continuing to celebrate it and remember it."
Ripken went out of his way Saturday night in Minnesota to preserve the moment in a manner he thought appropriate. Staying near the dugout for at least a half or hour or so after the Orioles 6-4 win, Ripken signed autographs for dozens of Metrodome fans, writing 4-15-00 on each signature. While many lamented that his career-capping hit came in the anti-septic and plastic environment of the Twins' home ballpark, rather than with the familiar Camden Yards backdrop of his other milestone games, Ripken lauded the 18,000-plus fans who saluted his every move on his historic three-hit night. "It's a really good feeling when you get received in another ballpark the way I was received in Minnesota," he said. "It was very much a baseball atmosphere ... and I tried to share in the moment. I always feel that when you witness something, you come to a game, it's an opportunity to share an experience. "Say you bring your son, or your family or your daughter. You remember the experience as a family as a result of what happened in the game. In this particular game, with the significance of 3,000 hits, I tried to share that moment with them in the way of an autograph. It was my way of trying to enhance the experience." We are close enough to the end that Ripken's place in the game's history is coming clearly in focus. On Monday he allowed himself one satisfaction: the knowledge of having changed the game in some real way. "I'm proud of the fact I've been able to make a contribution to baseball," he said. "You hear [Yankee Derek] Jeter and [Mariner] Alex Rodriguez talk about my influence, in at least their opportunity to be considered a shortstop as bigger athletic guys. I really didn't consider myself doing anything. I was just doing what I was told. Earl [Weaver] moved me over to shortstop [from third base] and I tried to the best I could. "Those kind of things, as far as the big picture of contributing to baseball, I feel good about. I think we all know that you have your time in the sun, if you're very lucky, and then you kind of go away and watch the next group of guys come in. Everybody wants to make their little mark, and I feel really good about my contribution to baseball." Ripken has made his mark, in the biggest and boldest of baseball's numbers. His time in the sun has somehow been ours too.
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