Cal Ripken Jr. played through several painful stretches during his record-setting streak.
But none was as painful as the herniated disc in his back during the summer of 1997. He asked doctors if he could play without risking further injury. They said yes. And the streak lived on.
“I gave it a try, and it was the most excruciating pain,” said Ripken, whose left leg was weakened by the injury.
His power numbers dipped slightly, but he maintained a solid average in leading the Orioles to their last postseason appearance.
“My home runs were a little down,” said Ripken, who hit 17 homers in 1997 after hitting 26 the previous season. “I wasn’t able to drive the ball. I had to push all my energy to compete then.”
Ripken never worried about his statistics. His goal was to come to the ballpark “assuming the responsibility to play every day.”
He credits that to his father, longtime Orioles coach Cal Ripken, Sr., who died in 1999.
“If Dad instilled anything in me, it was the fact that your job as a professional baseball player is to come to the ballpark every day ready to play,” Ripken said. “The streak was created by a bunch of managers who chose me.”
Opponents remember Ripken as a fierce competitor.
“He’s one of the few players who would bring your game up another level,” said former Angels shortstop Gary DiSarcina. “You wanted to play just as good as him.”
DiSarcina remembers Ripken as a player who, despite the pressure of the streak, never backed down.
“I tried to break up a doubleplay against him,” DiSarcina said. “It was like I hit a telephone pole.”
Ripken called that herniated disc “the most drastic” injury he sustained.
“We finally got back to being good in ’97, and some part of me said you’re not going to do this without me,” Ripken said. “I was able to get through it, and that was pretty gratifying.”
CLOSE CALLS
>> June 7, 1993 ? A brawl with the Seattle Mariners left Ripken with a swollen knee. Although he struggled to walk and had planned to miss a game, the medical treatment he received allowed him to take the field.
>> July 26, 1993 ? Ripken?s wife, Kelly, gives birth to the couple’s second child, Ryan Calvin, with impeccable timing. The Orioles did not have a game that day.
>> April 1995 ? Had Major League Baseball or Orioles owner Peter Angelos opted to play replacement players during the 232-day players? strike that bridged the 1994 and 1995 seasons, Ripken?s streak would have ended a few months before setting the major league record.
