Iron Man Cal Ripken, Jr. Entered The Record Books 18 Years Ago

Living in Washington, D.C. during the Cal Ripken, Jr. era there was nothing better than seeing how young fans truly adored him.  There was nothing like it in baseball at that time or likely even now.

On a September night in 1995, all of us adored Ripken as he broke the unbreakable record – Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games.  I bet Gehrig himself would have been pleased by the character of the man who broke his incredible record.

From Wikipedia:

Both President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were at the game; Clinton was with the commentators on ESPN for the Orioles’ half of the fourth inning and called Ripken’s fourth inning home run. When the game became official after the Angels’ half of the fifth inning, the numerical banners that displayed Ripken’s streak on the wall of the B&O Warehouse outside the stadium’s right field wall changed from 2130 to 2131.

The crowd in the stands, the opposing players and all four umpires gave Ripken a standing ovation lasting more than 22 minutes, one of the longest standing ovations for any athlete; ESPN did not go to a commercial break during the entire ovation. During the ovation, Ripken did a lap around the entire Camden Yards warning track to shake hands and give high-fives to the fans.

“Tonight I stand here, overwhelmed, as my name is linked with the great and courageous Lou Gehrig. I’m truly humbled to have our names spoken in the same breath. This year has been unbelievable. I’ve been cheered in ballparks all over the country. People not only showed me their kindness, but more importantly, they demonstrated their love of the game of baseball. I give my thanks to baseball fans everywhere. Tonight, I want to make sure you know how I feel. As I grew up here, I not only had dreams of being a big league ballplayer, but also of being a Baltimore Oriole. For all of your support over the years, I want to thank you, the fans of Baltimore, from the bottom of my heart. This is the greatest place to play.”

“Bobby Bonilla and Rafael Palmeiro pushed me out of the dugout and said, ‘Hey, if you don’t do a lap around this thing, we’ll never get the game started.’ I thought it was a ridiculous sort of thing … but as I started to do it, the celebration of 50,000 started to be very one-on-one and very personal. I started seeing people I knew … Those were the people that had been around the ballpark all those years, and it was really a wonderful human experience.

Year	Age	G	H	HR	RBI	BA	Awards
1981	20	23	5	0	0	.128
1982	21	160	158	28	93	.264	MVP-30,RoY-1
1983 ★	22	162	211	27	102	.318	AS,MVP-1,SS
1984 ★	23	162	195	27	86	.304	AS,MVP-27,SS
1985 ★	24	161	181	26	110	.282	AS,MVP-17,SS
1986 ★	25	162	177	25	81	.282	AS,SS
1987 ★	26	162	157	27	98	.252	AS
1988 ★	27	161	152	23	81	.264	AS
1989 ★	28	162	166	21	93	.257	AS,MVP-3,SS
1990 ★	29	161	150	21	84	.250	AS,MVP-24
1991 ★	30	162	210	34	114	.323	AS,MVP-1,GG,SS
1992 ★	31	162	160	14	72	.251	AS,GG
1993 ★	32	162	165	24	90	.257	AS,MVP-19,SS
1994 ★	33	112	140	13	75	.315	AS,MVP-12,SS
1995 ★	34	144	144	17	88	.262	AS,MVP-19
1996 ★	35	163	178	26	102	.278	AS
1997 ★	36	162	166	17	84	.270	AS
1998 ★	37	161	163	14	61	.271	AS
1999 ★	38	86	113	18	57	.340	AS
2000 ★	39	83	79	15	56	.256	AS
2001 ★	40	128	114	14	68	.239	AS
21 Yrs		3001	3184	431	1695	.276
162 Game Avg.		162	172	23	91	.276
		G	H	HR	RBI	BA	Awards

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/6/2015.

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