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Ironed out? Ripken faces questions about his ribs and retirement
Updated: Tuesday February 27, 2001 3:43 PM
Cal Ripken is hoping to play a full schedule this season. That may sound strange coming from the Iron Man, but back problems have limited his playing time over the past two seasons. Then during the offseason, he broke a rib, which is hindering his ability to go full-strength during spring training. He expects to be ready to go on Opening Day, but will his 21st season also be his last? Ripken sat down with CNN/Sport Illustrated's Laura Okmin to talk about his future and the future of baseball. Laura Okmin: How are you feeling? Cal Ripken: It's not a retirement question yet? Okmin: Not yet, give us some time. Ripken: How am I feeling? Let me see... (takes a deep breath in) much better. My rib, I noticed that the biggest difficulty is breathing, coughing, sneezing. The kind of things that you really don't realize you do as much as you actually do. But it just takes time to heal and the healing process is two weeks to the day right now since I injured it. I suspect I'll be picking up a bat in maybe a week or ten days from now. Okmin: You come into camp with the team rebuilding, low expectations. You don't have a streak to worry about. Do you have to find motivation? Ripken: I have fun, so I don't need the motivation to accomplish anything. If I was looking for some way to motivate, I would really look back to the time that I was hurt last year and watching the game from the bench. It bothered me so much to watch someone else play the game and not be able to play that I had to distance myself from the team a little bit. I had to go out of the dugout and go into the clubhouse to watch it on TV. I learned a little bit about myself thinking, 'Gosh, I must still have the desire to actually go out there and play. I can't even sit in the dugout and watch a game if I'm not able to play.' Okmin: When you make the final retirement decision, which part do you think will have the biggest say: your head, your heart or your body? Ripken: Last year I thought it was my body, but I tested my body out in September and then I tested it out in the offseason pretty good. Hopefully, it's not my body. Hopefully, my body will not break down. So that boils down to your heart and your head, maybe a combination of both. Okmin: Do you think we're heading towards a work stoppage? Ripken: It seems like if you look at history, every time this comes up it seems like it's a big battle and it's a big struggle and it has ended in some ugly work stoppages,lockouts, strikes. That ultimately is not good for the whole game, even though the game has recovered from it. Okmin: Do you think fans would be as forgiving this time? Baseball really needed you after the 1994 strike. Everything with the streak was bringing people out. Would fans do it again? Ripken: Why risk it? Why drive people away just to bring them back again. I think ultimately it would survive, but sometimes you wonder why does it have to take a hit?
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