Fabled shortstop with 16-year streak to bow out

"The streak" is what baseball fans call it. It began on May 30th, 1982, and finished on September 20th, 1998, 16 and a bit years later, when No 8, Cal Ripken, decided he'd had enough and sat out a game. In between he had played all 2,632 consecutive games for his beloved Baltimore Orioles, in 1995 smashing Lou Gehrig's 2,130 record to smithereens.

"The Streak is simply the greatest accomplishment in any sport, anywhere," says Nomar Garciaparra, one of the stars of the Boston Red Sox. "It's the most unbelievable thing a player could do. I don't think people can understand it or respect it unless you have played professional baseball."

Put another way, in those 16 years, while baseball's "Iron Man" played on unfailingly, in later years his lower back in constant pain, there were 3,695 instances of other major league players taking time out on the sick list.

But Ripken, who retires from the major league game tomorrow at 41, after 20 seasons, is much more than an endurance phenomenon. In the infield, particularly in the shortstop position he made his own, Ripken has probably never had an equal; as a hitter he is among the very best. And he was nearly hired as a pitcher.

As a man, he epitomises like no other what America would like baseball to be like - the hometown boy, born of a baseball family, who never lost touch with fans and stayed true to the local team through thick and thin.

And there were very lean years at the Orioles, the capital's adoptive team.

Ripken's announcement in June of his intention to retire was a national event. Local papers have produced supplements and crowds have since packed every game at home and away - and home Orioles tickets are worth thousands.

All over the US, in every city the team has since visited, fans have held up placards in the stands that say simply "Thank you, Cal". Fans who have known the man to spend two hours and more after a game signing autographs just say he is a decent, down-to-earth guy and they love him.

His stats, in a statistics-obsessed game, are unique: Ripken has enough records to open a disco. Take his fielding. While the shortstop position, between second and third bases, was usually reserved for small, nimble players, Ripken, at 6 ft 2 in and 220 lbs, simply rewrote the book.

Instead of relying on agility, he reads the game with a ferocious intelligence and knowledge. He knows the hitters and the pitchers, understands tactics like they are in the blood - they are - and plays the percentages, anticipating, so that when the ball is hit Ripken is there. A friend who follows the Orioles says he used to sit in the stands with binoculars trained on Ripken, watching nothing else. "It was amazing," he said. "He was always there."

Exaggeration? In 1990 Ripken completed the entire season with a record low of only three fielding errors and a record fielding average of 0.990 - perfection is one. In effect you could hit a ball at Ripken 1,000 times and he would drop it only four times.

He also holds the shortstop record for the most consecutive chances without an error - at 426. As a hitter Ripken is one of only seven in major league history to make a career total of both over 3,000 hits and 400 home runs. (A home run is the baseball equivalent of a four or, more usually, a six in cricket.)

He has his detractors, of course. Some say he is aloof. Others complain that he is not a leader. But team-mates say that is to misunderstand a quiet man who leads by example and with a quiet word of encouragement rather than a rant. Ripken says wryly that's the difference for him between baseball and football, where bringing someone to an emotional frenzy is probably useful.

His career has brought him enormous plaudits, including a place on the league's all-stars team 16 years in a row, and wealth. His salary in 2001 is $6.3 million and he earns millions more from endorsements.

In retirement he plans to run a league for children and is building a huge baseball complex for them in his home- town of Aberdeen, Maryland.

America, today more than ever, needs heroes to feel good about. Cal Ripken is one of the extraordinary few who can fill that void. Even in bowing out he is healing.

psmyth@irish-times.ie