The legacy of Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. is partly due to his image as a regular guy. Just a working man who simply went to his job every day and gave it his all.
On Tuesday, when it was announced that Ripken was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, that image was reaffirmed as the Iron Man sat with his wife, Kelly, and children, Rachel and Ryan.
“Has anything changed around the house? No,” Kelly said. “That?s one thing about Cal ? what you see is what you get. He?s still the same guy. But he still has to pick up his socks, like everyone else.”
Ryan Ripken agreed.
“I just see him as my dad, nothing new,” Ryan said. “Still the same old guy.”
Only now, he?s a Hall of Famer.
Ripken earned 98.53 percent of the 545 votes cast ? the third-highest percentage all-time behind Tom Seaver (98.84) and Nolan Ryan (98.79), and the best ever for a position player.
Ripken, who set baseball?s all-time consecutive-games record at 2,632, hit .276 with 3,184 hits, 431 home runs and 1,695 RBI in his 21-year career, which ended in 2001. He also won the 1982 American League Rookie of the Year Award, two AL MVPs, two All-Star Game MVPs and two Gold Gloves. He was named to 19 All-Star Games and helped the Orioles win the 1983 World Series.
“It?s reflective, because you can look back at all the people who had an impact on your life,” Ripken said.
Ripken noted many former Orioles, particularly those in his early years, who had an impact on his career. Clearly, he had an impact in return.
“On behalf of the Orioles organization, I want to congratulate Cal on this well-deserved honor,” Orioles? chairman and CEO Peter Angelos said in a statement. “We congratulate Cal on his latest honor and wish him continued success.”
Ripken becomes the 12th Oriole elected to the Hall of Fame, joining a group that includes fellow first-ballot inductees Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray and Reggie Jackson. Only six ? Murray, Palmer, former manager Earl Weaver, both Robinsons and, soon, Ripken ? wear an O?s uniform on their respective Hall of Fame plaque.
“In some ways, it still seems a little unreal,” Ripken said. “I don?t know what it?s going to feel like to be teammates with the likes of Brooks in that respect. I know when Eddie Murray was inducted, I had the privilege of being in the audience. And when the Hall of Famers came out from behind him, it?s a very magical sort of feeling. It?s hard to describe. It?s a presence of baseball. It?s sort of ghostly and moves you when you?re there.”
Ripken, born in Havre de Grace and raised in Aberdeen, becomes the eighth Maryland native elected.
“I loved what I did,” Ripken said. “I had a dream a long time ago to be a ballplayer. In many ways, its just a continuation of that dream.”
2007 Hall of Fame Voting
» 545 votes cast; 409 needed for induction
Cal Ripken Jr. 537 (98.5 percent), Tony Gwynn 532 (97.6), Rich Gossage 388 (71.2), Jim Rice 346 (63.5), Andre Dawson 309 (56.7), Bert Blyleven 260 (47.7), Lee Smith 217 (39.8), Jack Morris 202 (37.1), Mark McGwire 128 (23.5), Tommy John 125 (22.9), y-Steve Garvey 115 (21.1), Dave Concepcion 74 (13.6), Alan Trammell 73 (13.4), Dave Parker 62 (11.4), Don Mattingly 54 (9.9), Dale Murphy 50 (9.2), Harold Baines 29 (5.3).
