2,632 consecutive games played. That seems like a silly record. It's the equivalent of baseball's perfect attendance award, and yet we have elevated Cal Ripken, Jr., to mythical status because he achieved it. Why do we care?
It's the only record in sports that defines the nature versus nurture argument. We weren't all born with the ability to play professional sports, to hit 755 homers, to score 100 points in regulation, or to rush for 28 touchdowns. Most of us were born with the ability to go to work each day. Granted, the vast majority of us aren't talented enough to play baseball at the top level for a decade and a half. Whatever we do, though, we are talented enough to show up each and every day and do our job, whether that job is running a Fortune 500 company or scraping gutters, even when we don't feel well, or drank too much the night before, or have a personal crisis. We all CAN be Cal Ripken, Jr., in our own worlds and we're not--and that's okay.
Rather, Cal Ripken, Jr., received from his father a unique combination of great baseball genes and a great upbringing. He was taught to play by the rules, show up for work, and put in a hard day. He was born with the talent and the work ethic was imbued upon him by his family. It is remarkable, and not a coincidence, that two athletes in our time have been so father focused: Tiger Woods and Cal Ripken, Jr. Both achieved excellence in their sports through a combination of the luck of physical ability and the ethos received from their parents.
To want to be the Iron Man is to want to be a perfect American. It's steel and Henry Ford and buying war bonds and putting your children in a better position to succeed than you had. It's the notion that a rocket scientist and a garbageman can be neighbors if they both work hard and save right. It is that ideal of hard work, no matter how close we actually come to accomplishing it, that makes this country special and a beacon for people around the world.
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That's why The Streak matters so much to so many of us, and that's why Dave Trembley and Miguel Tejada's perversion of the chase for that accomplishment is so disgusting. Cheating comes with baseball, and the steroids scandals have changed our concept of achievement. Those substances, however, only improve the athlete's already superior God-given abilities. This exploitation is intolerable.
5 comments:
Does that include being selfish and sacrificing team and performance for the betterment of personal adulation with the streak?
Cal was a career .276 hitter, but thats more like .290 if you figure he was much higher in the early years of the streak, and the years after it ended. But for six of the last seven years of the streak, he hit .264 or under, and barely even got to .250 in two of those, and also had sub-average power numbers in five of those six years. And why? How much better would he have been if he had taken one day off a week in July and August? How much better would the Orioles have been? Well, they sucked until 1995, the year it all ended. And what a coincidence...the year he finally sits out a few games, the Orioles become a playoff contender.
So is THAT the American spirit? To sacrifice team results for personal goals and glory? I dont think so. But maybe while it isnt the spirit, it may be a microcosm of American life. We work a minimum of 40 hours a week, and if we are lucky, get 10 days of paid vacation a year. This is an absolute recipe for burnout, and for losing efficiency in work production. And after all, thats exactly what happened to Cal.
The Streak ended on Sept. 20, 1998, he just passed Gehrig in 1995. The O's were in the ALCS in 1996 and 1997, while The Streak was still active.
That also throws off your batting average analysis. He hit .278 and 26HR/102RBI in 1996, .270 17HR/84RBI in 1997 and .271 14HR/61RBI in 1998. His average did spike back up to .340 in only 86 games the next year, when he dealt with back injuries, but I don't think you can attribute days off to his improved batting average, especially since he was in considerable pain all season.
He was just a streaky player. He had 1000 different batting stances over his career.
Plus, it isn't like Ripken was keeping A-Rod or Jeter off the field. He was keeping guys like Juan Bell, Craig Worthington, Tim Hulett and Jeff Reboulet off the field. That's not selfish, it's a blessing.
Okay, I forgot that 1995 was also strike shortened. But with the exception of 1991 and 1996, his power numbers still suffered and were below his career average. And as someone who has the privilege of seeing Jeff Reboulet play once a week for a couple years in Los Angeles....you guys should only wish you were so lucky.
So The Streak spanned from 1983 to 1998, and you're saying that he had lower power numbers in the second HALF on that span than in the first HALF of that span. You went to law school so I know you suck at math, but you do know how an average is calculated right?
Unless your name is Bonds, Sosa or McGwire, power numbers do typically drop off over the latter half of the player's career.
That's stupid. He's genetically more hardy.
I couldn't show up every dy for that long because I would get sick or hurt -- he had the genes to do it. You're a homo.
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