European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 09, 1995, Darmstadt, Hesse Of i Cal Ripken or. Is doing something far More significant than preserving a playing Streak whether or not he knows it he s saving baseball from itself. Every time he stays late into the night after a game in his uniform to sign autographs he proves to be the receptacle for All those1 Virtues we thought had left baseball forever one Cal Ripken sure in t enough every club needs one. To hit and Field and go to work every Day because he feels he s the Luckiest Man on the face of the Earth. To talk to children and sign autographs until his hand cramps to appear at malls and Charity events and Little league games and to take a Victory Lap around a stadium and slap hands while soaking up the Dearest sweetest admiration of a lifetime. Baseball heeds Ripken to play every Day and every night because he is baseball s Hope right now its Hope to recruit a new Michael Wilbon Washington Post consecutive club the top streakers in major league history generation that has turned elsewhere for its sporting passions its Hope to lure parents and their children to the Ballpark. How special does one Man have to be to cover All of baseball s sins in a season that has so Little to celebrate baseball is luckier than it deserves to have Ripken shift our ". Focus to an accomplishment with which every Man woman and child can identify. If major league baseball had a lick of sense it would have forced every team in the majors to play wednesday afternoon so that everybody associated with the sport particularly the players could have settled in to savor wednesday night. A lot of us have turned a deaf ear to baseball some of us have become downright hostile because we feel baseball betrayed us what with its labor games 2,131 2,130 1,307 1,207 1,117 1,103. 895 829 822 798 player Cal Ripken Lou Gehrig Everett Scott Steve Garvey Billy Williams Joe Sewell Stan Musial Eddie Yost. Gus Suhr Nellie Fox More than 30 years old and grew up in the United states with a passion for sports chances Are overwhelming your first love was baseball. Mine certainly was. Yet so Many of us turned away for Good this summer after an autumn without the world series. Well we tried to. Cal Ripken brought us Back Reade us tune in after we d vowed no More. Seeing Ropken talk to the children and sign every piece of paper thrust in his face reminded me of my own childhood the summer of 1969 specifically when two of my own heroes Bill Melton and Walt no neck Williams of the White sox were invited to our Little league opener. And accepted. No limbs or. Bodyguards or encourages or appearance fees just them showing up in the Park on a saturday morning As promised. Melton would go on to become the Al Home run Champion. I still have the Home movies of Melton Riding in my father s White convertible Pontiac. In those Days you could wait outside the Ballpark in the players parking lot for me it was Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park and ask Fergie Jenkins to show you the proper grip on a Slider or get Wilbur Wood to teach you How to throw a Knuck Leball. It was a time before million Dollar contracts and endorsements and fans stalking players and Selling autographs. I won t suggest it was an innocent time but it was sure better than this. And Ripken now 35, remembers it and what a Little kindness meant to a kid wearing his hero s Jersey and How far a smile and a is Cal Ripken signals for a Fly not for the fact he s no 11n consecutive games. Dugout maybe it was 75, and having Carlton Fisk playfully smack my face with his Glove and taking the time to talk to a Bunch of us when surely he had something better to wars and players who d throw a. Firecracker at a 2-year-old sooner than Pat on the head could go. I remember smile or sign an autograph. If you re once leaning Over into the red sox these last few weeks Jive been a Long wonderful teary eyed Flashback and Cal Ripken has been the Only before wednesday night s game my Friend Larry called and said he top was going to Camden Yards. Larry s a 40 year old new York lawyer and a mets fan which is to say he a Well irreverent. He was coming close to swearing off baseball too. The astroturf drove me away some the do drove me further. Away agents becoming More important than the players drove me further away four hour games and no strike zone drove me even further away. Well Jhen the strike. But i d stand in the rain to see Cal i Don t know that i d heard Larry speak about anybody that admiringly but there he was gushing on and on. He never complained or Back stabbed a teammate. He does t need some stupid nickname like sup real. If you have a son or a daughter he s the one Guy in professional sports who exemplifies what a ballplayer ought to be. Conclusively. He actually i what we thought those old ballplayers it s not about baseball for me How Many More consecutive games he plays or the number of Home runs he hits. He s so much More important than stats. If what you re holding dear to you after this experience is All Over is 2,13 l or some number you , missed the Man s most significant contribution to baseball with the game he loves intr trouble Cal Ripken stepped up and accepted a Challenge no Man should have to carry. I must admit i be been afraid to go to the Ballpark during the Cal Streak afraid i d see the banners unfurling on the warehouse behind right Field and get All warm and fuzzy afraid that i might get caught up in this whole Cal Ripken thing and want to go to the Park like i _ used to 20 to 25 times a year Early enough to see batting practice every time. Do you dare fall in love with baseball All Over again knowing the disgust that Waits at the end of the next labor agreement i went to Camden Yards wednesday night to celebrate Ripken but keep baseball at Arm s distance. But he hit the Home run and he took that Victory Lap and he made that speech at the end and before i knew it i was having so much fun again having succumbed to the Power of a Man whose primary seduction is Plain old wonderful reliability. September 9-15, 1995 beyond the game Page 11
