Q&A with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr.

Baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. was in Myrtle Beach on Sunday to speak to the 50 youth baseball teams competing this coming week at The Ripken Experience complex, but before he got to the business of signing autographs and posing for photos, the Hall of Famer shared some stories from his career and gave his thoughts on today’s game.

This September will mark the 20th anniversary of Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s hallowed record for most consecutive games played, a mark the modern day “Ironman” would extend to 2,632 before he was finished.

In an engaging interview, Ripken reflected back on some of the tougher obstacles he had to overcome during that streak as well as his favorite ballparks, his thoughts on one day working in the Major Leagues again and the players he enjoys watching today.

Q: In regard to crafting fields at The Ripken Experience in unique dimensions to honor some of the game’s famed old ballparks, what were you’re favorite stadiums as a player?

Ripken: “I had 10 years in [Baltimore’s] Memorial Stadium and 10 years in Camden Yards, and those two were my home ballparks and were pretty special to me personally. I was an Oriole fan and I got the chance to make my debut standing on the same sacred ground that my hero Brooks Robinson played on, and that was a really cool park. It had a real rich history and I was really wondering why they would build a new one, why not just try to fix up that one? And then you go to Camden Yards and that’s a unique, wonderful, fantastic environment. It felt like baseball had been played there for 100 years and it was brand spanking new.

“On the road, playing in Yankee Stadium, if you were good and they were good then that was a great place to play because everybody was really reactive to every pitch. They knew what a big pitch was in the first inning. They didn’t have to have the scoreboard tell them to cheer and all that stuff. They were intense. It was an intense environment to be in, but one that was very competitive and it was fun to play in. It wasn’t overly intimidating, [but] they would get on you and they definitely had an advantage being at home because it was so loud and so crazy. I remember specifically being in there a few years when we were in the pennant race. You’d have a four-game series in New York – if they won three out of four they’d get back into it, if we won three out of four we’d knock them back. And so being in there and competing in close ballgames and having a meeting on the mound in the sixth or seventh inning, you can’t hear what’s going on. Normal conversation, it feels like you have to yell to talk about bunt plays or strategies or what the pitching coach was trying to tell the pitcher. And then for a brief moment you could walk back to your position and most of the time you’re in your zone so fans aren’t really a factor, but every once in a while you come out of that and listen and go, ‘This is cool.’ And then you go back into your focus for the game.

“Yankee Stadium was a really cool place to play for that reason. Fenway is like a museum quality experience. It’s so different, and with the history of baseball, it’s been around so long and all the great players have come through there and to have that in common, that’s cool. When I first went there, I bumped my head about a hundred times in the dugout, and the inside of the stadium wasn’t so favorable. I think they’ve done a nice job of renovating the insides of that stadium, but it always seemed like the water was leaking from the walls.

“And I got a chance to play over in Wrigley Field for an All-Star game, and Wrigley Field was a similar experience to Fenway where it’s just got a lot of character to it, it’s got a lot of feel to it.

“Those feelings that I’m discussing now, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish with the experience here.”

Q: You’re staying busy (with projects like this and other baseball-related interests), but do you ever miss being involved with Major League Baseball on a day-to-day basis from an inside-an-organization standpoint?

Ripken: “I’ve thought about that. It’s what I learned most of my life being under my dad, who was in professional baseball, and then applying that at the big league level. What I know is mostly between the white lines so there’s always been a little urge to try to apply what you know. I made the decision when I retired that I was going to change my lifestyle – the schedule of being on the road for 81 games and being home for 81 games – because my kids were 8 and 11 or 12 at the time so I wanted to spend time with them. Now they’re off on their own, so I think about it.

“Why, do you know a job opening for me?

“No, I’ve been flattered, there’s been a little bit of a flurry of activity asking me what my interest was in that level, and so if I was going to do something I guess I better get my act together, but I’m perfectly content doing what I’m doing.”

Q: And that’s just in recent years, that flurry of activity with people reaching out to you?

Ripken: “I know I shouldn’t have said that. I get an occasional inquiry about doing something with a pro team, a big league team.”

Q: What’s it mean to you to see the Orioles rejuvenated these last few years?

Ripken: “I love it. I was always a Buck Showalter fan. I [think] he’s a fanatic, hard-worker baseball guy and he came in and restored a lot of the evaluation, picking the right players, but also managing the players and the team and giving them a chance. And I think most of the credit probably goes to Buck, and I’m sure [general manager] Dan Duquette deserves a lot of credit too. But looking at the on-the-field things, he’s had a history of doing that with a number of franchises and it’s good to see, and it’s good to see the Baltimore people really get excited about baseball. They’re coming out in pretty good numbers, they’re checking to see what happened last night with the Birds, they’re talking about it more. So I can’t be more happy about that.”

Q: From a competitiveness standpoint, how do you fill that void these days. I know some players dive into golf after their career. Do you have an outlet that satisfies that?

Ripken: “I’m a competitive person in most ways. When you’re doing something, you want to do it and be successful and win, but I played in over 3,000 games at the big league level and almost all of them in a row. And I’ve been challenged in many different ways, so I don’t know if I got it out of my system, but there’s always sort of a competitive feel. I don’t need to find that in another sport. I play golf recreationally, I’m riding the bike now for exercise, but I don’t feel the need to actually ride in a group and go compete. I think in my daily life, I have my competitive outlets.”

Q: Is there one player now when you’re flipping through the TV you have to stop and watch, be it an at-bat or a pitcher who draws your attention in?

Ripken: “I’m curious about a lot of the young guys. The kid [Kris] Bryant from Chicago now, they talked about him as a can’t-miss and a super talent and he’s got such a good head on his shoulders. He hit a couple homers yesterday, didn’t he? So it’s kind of cool to see that development. And then reading [Cubs manager] Joe Maddon’s words about him, it’s all about experience and getting things under your belt, so that’s a cool thing to watch. The kid Manny Machado in Baltimore captured everybody’s attention with some of his physical skills. He’s a shortstop, then because of needs with the team he gets an opportunity at third, and he just goes out there and he’s the best third baseman in the league. Just some of the plays he’s able to make with his skill set, that’s fun to watch.

“It’s great to see Bryce Harper really break out. He had all this potential and, rightfully so, all this pressure’s been on him. He’s still very young in his career, but [it’s fun] to see him getting over the hump and really being the player that they thought he was. Mike Trout is another one that you can sit and watch. [Troy] Tulowitzki, I don’t watch a lot of the Colorado Rockies, but occasionally I’ll be flipping through and I’ll stop and see his at-bats. Just to name a few.”

Q: Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, September is the 20-year anniversary of the streak [surpassing Lou Gehrig’s record]. How often do you think about it now, and when you look back, what do you recall as being the closest call along the way of missing a game?

Ripken: “Twenty years. It’s hard to believe in some ways it’s 20 years, and then in other ways it’s easy to believe because it almost seems like it was another lifetime ago. Sept. 6, 1995 was a special night, and there was a lot of cool things that happened in that celebration, so I guess I’m torn – in some ways it feels like, ‘It can't be 20 years. It just happened.’ And the other thing is I retired and my last year was ’01 and we’re in 2015, so you start adding up the years and it does seem when you think about yourself as a player it was another lifetime.

“Closest to ending the streak? I hurt my knee in a brawl with the Seattle Mariners and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to play. I hyperextended my elbow in a slide into second base – this was fairly early on – and it hurt when I swung the bat, and so in the on-deck circle I didn’t think I’d be able to play. I played through a herniated disk after the record was already broken, and that was one of the hardest things I ever had to play through. That was in 1997 when we were in first place from the first day of the season to the last and I didn’t want to miss out. We went through a major rebuilding process and to get back to winning, you don’t want to miss out on that. So somehow I was able to will myself through my back issues and contribute pretty well and play well in the playoffs too. So those were the challenging ones. But Jack Morris hit me in the elbow one year in the second game of the season or first game of the season and it just stayed that way for the whole year because if you made a tough-angle throw, it would flare up; if you swung the bat a certain way it would flare up. So it felt like I couldn’t get rid of the elbow injury the whole year.

“But you’re nicked up. You’re only 100 percent in the first day of spring training, so you’re some level less than 100 percent all the way through and you push yourself through and feel like you can perform at less than 100 percent. And all players have to do that.”

This story was originally published July 5, 2015 at 10:20 PM with the headline "Q&A with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr.."