Cal Ripken, Jr.
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Calvin Edwin "Cal" Ripken Jr., nicknamed "The Iron Man", is an American former baseball shortstop and third baseman who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseballfor the Baltimore Orioles. One of his position's most offensively productive players, Ripken compiled 3,184 hits, 431 home runs, and 1,695 runs batted in during his career, and he won two Gold Glove Awards for his defense. He was a 19-time All-Star and was twice named American LeagueMost Valuable Player. Ripken is best known for...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth24 August 1960
CityHavre De Grace, MD
CountryUnited States of America
I am driven by what you are able to accomplish and how you are able to help some people. I go about it each and every day, sometimes I think I say yes too much and I am too busy in my life.
A lot of people have been telling me that I was going to be in the Hall of Fame and those are nice words and I try not to think about it, but when the call came, it made it real. It was a pretty darned good feeling.
That's the result of the black cloud on baseball, .. Until it's rid of steroids, people are naturally going to think that.
I haven't given it (achieving 3,000 hits) much thought. I was taught a certain approach, how to come to the ballpark. I try not to do too much thinking about things like that. In this society we measure success in different ways. Three thousand (hits) represents success over a career, not a season. It'll be nice to get to that point.
I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.
Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me.
I think baseball has moved on in many ways and the focus on the competitions on the field is really what the game is all about. It seems to be healthy. It seems more people are watching it.
When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?
So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it's almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.
I'd like to be remembered. I'd like to think that someday two guys will be talking in a bar and one of them will say something like, 'Yeah, he's a good shortstop, but he's not as good as ole Ripken was.'
Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.
If you really think about it, the stadium can't last forever. There is going to have to come a time when it replaces.
A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.
Quite frankly, I don't miss standing in the box or standing on the field playing.