From PEOPLE Magazine
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Kelly Ripken, 36, Cal's wife of seven years, likes to tell people she has "three kids." Cal, she says, "can't get enough of playing with Ryan and Rachel. It's his reality check. He's just Dad around here." Everywhere else in the world, Ripken, 35, is the Baltimore Orioles' durable shortstop, who last Wednesday night played in his 2,131st consecutive major league game and broke one of the most venerated records in sport, set in 1939 by Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees. On May 2 of that year, Gehrig, weakened by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—the disease that would claim his life two years later at 37 and would thereafter bear his name—was forced to sit out what would have been his 2,131st game. He never started another. "Fans," he told a sellout Yankee Stadium crowd on July 4, "for the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break I got. Yet, today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
On Wednesday night at Baltimore's Camden Yards, Ryan and Rachel threw out the first ball for the game against the California Angels, as Kelly, handing out "Super-CAL-ifragilistic" T-shirts, Ripken's parents, Vi and Cal Sr., and his three siblings, Ellen, Fred and Billy (a former Orioles second baseman now in the Cleveland Indians organization), joined a throng of 46,272. In the fifth inning the game came to a halt when the crowd—which included Bill and Chelsea Clinton, Al Gore and his family and Joe DiMaggio—launched into a 22-minute ovation. Clearly overcome, Ripken, who hit home runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, finally made a lap around the field, shaking hands with the ecstatic fans.
There is nothing "fragilistic" about Ripken, either physically or emotionally. And yet his sense of relief at achieving something that until a few years ago had seemed virtually unachievable was almost palpable. For months he had tried not to think about the streak and refused to talk about it at home. He'd received some death threats, and broadcaster Larry King suggested that, out of deference to Gehrig's greatness, Ripken should tie the record rather than break it. Toward the end, Ripken had trouble sleeping and admitted to worrying about how he should react at the big moment. Sports pundits made the inevitable comparisons between him and Gehrig, a shy, unassuming first baseman who batted behind Babe Ruth in the Yankees' Murderers' Row. But Ripken ignored them. "I thought if I read about Gehrig," he says, "there was the slightest chance I would become obsessed with the streak. Then I would start playing for the sake of the streak, and that would be a shame. See, this isn't about someone trying to erase Lou Gehrig from the record books. It's about somebody who wanted to go out and play baseball every day."
To understand Cal Ripken Jr., you need to understand the home he came from and the man who left his stamp indelibly upon it: Cal Ripken Sr. In young Cal's early years, the Ripkens were a family of baseball gypsies, operating out of Aberdeen, Md. They traveled all over the country as Cal Sr. managed one Oriole minor league team after another. "My mom was the one who packed up the station wagon," says Ripken. "She held everything together, no doubt about it. But my dad's influence was very strong. I learned from his example."
Young Cal idolized his father, who became a coach with the Baltimore Orioles in 1976 and manager in 1987. So tough, so impervious to pain and devoted to duty, was Cal Sr. that he would pitch batting practice with a torn rotator cuff in his throwing arm. "I'd go to the ballpark with my dad because I wanted to spend time with him," says Cal. "I thought that was the coolest thing. Looking back on it, the 30 minutes when we drove to and from the park made the whole day."
Cal Jr. was drafted by the Orioles out of Aberdeen High School in 1978. In typically modest fashion—and in homage to his father, who never made it to the majors as a player—he wrote in his yearbook that his greatest ambition was "to be a minor league baseball player." He was one for three years until he came up to the big club at 21 in 1982. That season he was named American League Rookie of the Year—and began the streak. His worst moment came in 1988, when his father was fired as Orioles manager just six games into the season. Cal Sr. told him not to let the situation disrupt his game. "It was the passing of the torch," says the son. " 'Carry on my values, carry on my code of behavior.' Those were the unspoken words."
He hasn't wavered much since then. According to the Orioles record book, Ripken's streak has been in jeopardy only three times. The closest he came to not playing was on June 6, 1993, when he wrenched his right knee during a bench-clearing melee with Seattle. The next day his knee was swollen, but he refused even to miss infield practice. "Who would have thought somebody could go out and play every day for 14 years?" says Mike Mussina, the Orioles' star pitcher. "I probably take him for granted. But when I'm done with baseball, I can say I played with Cal Ripken."
Cal has gotten much of his own inspiration from Kelly, who suffers from Graves' disease, a thyroid condition. The couple met in 1984, thanks to Kelly's mother, who had approached the ballplayer at a restaurant and asked for his autograph for her daughter. Ripken wrote, "Kelly, if you look anything like your mother, I'm sorry I missed you." A month or so later, Kelly approached Cal at another restaurant to thank him; within three years they were married.
"Kelly keeps everything in balance," says Ripken. "I liked the fact that she didn't know a lot about baseball. I still do. I think baseball is great, but there is more to life." There are children, for one thing. Ripken, who was keenly affected by Cal Sr.'s absences, is determined to always be present for his kids. "The quandary I'm in right now," he says, watching Ryan and Rachel in the backyard pool, "is that I can see the end of my career. I'm starting to think, 'What do I want to do with the rest of my life?' My whole life has been baseball. So I'm trying to figure out how I can remain in baseball—and still be home for dinner every night."
WILLIAM PLUMMER
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