RECOVERED HISTORY

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A BASEBALL STAR TO ADMIRE

THOMAS BOSWELL, WASHINGTON POST - Perhaps Cal Ripken epitomizes
essential human values, like fidelity to a code of duty and honor. Or
maybe he's just a decent guy who showed up for work every day, signed a
lot of autographs and didn't cheat --- a very low hurdle for sainthood.
Either way, Ripken always has been exactly what baseball needed,
especially in its darkest times.

From his first day in the big leagues in 1981 until he was voted into
the Hall of Fame with the third-highest percentage ever, Ripken always
has been baseball's perfect answer --- even before the sport knew the
ugly question. Yes, he's at it again. In an age when jocks show up at
midnight in a white Hummer limo, Ripken will ride into Cooperstown in
July on a white horse at high noon.

As Barry Bonds stalks Hank Aaron all summer, like Rambo on Bambi's
trail, Ripken is positioned to steal the stage: the accidental antidote,
the hero by happenstance. In '95, after the sewage spill of a canceled
World Series, baseball needed a stench-free symbol of dependability, a
hometown boy who understood responsibility and an adult who grasped that
players simply were custodians of a game owned by its fans.

The sport got all those things, as the Orioles shortstop broke Lou
Gehrig's record for consecutive games played. Now history is seeking him
out again. The steroid-soaked stage is set. Baseball's need for a man
with a simple sense of honor is profoundly obvious. Cue Cal. . .

On an occasion when he was universally contrasted with Too Big Mac and
Balco Barry, Ripken tried to make one point perfectly clear --- in his
mind, at least, virtue had nothing to do with it. "To me there was no
fork in the road. There was no choice. Those things scare me to death,"
Ripken said last week when asked about playing clean.

Lest he get too much credit for mere honesty, he adds: "I never had the
options. The Orioles were thought of as a bunch of goody-two-shoes.
After those guys in Kansas City had [cocaine] problems, our team
voluntarily agreed to have drug testing. Eddie [Murray] said, 'Just go
along with it.' "When I came into the big leagues [in 1982, his first
full season], the locker room had ashtrays, spittoons and candy bars,"
adds Ripken, chuckling at a lifestyle little changed since the days of
the Babe. "Then the blenders for the protein mixes replaced them.". . .

Ripken may know plenty about the use of performance enhancers in
baseball. What veteran star player wouldn't? "The truth has started to
come out. But only parts have come out to this point. The overall thing
just saddens me. But it's reality. It is what it is," Ripken said. "I
don't resent being asked about it. It's all part of the process of
cleaning up. The truth will be known. Unfortunately, all the stories
probably haven't come out yet. I'm for the stories being told.". . .

SCOTT PITONIAK, ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE - Cal played day after
day after day, season after season after season --- enduring severely
sprained ankles, twisted knees, flu bugs, jammed fingers, hyperextended
elbows, pulled muscles, splitting headaches, a balky back, batting and
fielding slumps and long losing skids along the way. Nothing, though,
could keep him out of the lineup as the Iron Man strung together 2,632
consecutive games played --- a streak unlikely ever to be broken.

PETER SCHMUCK BALTIMORE SUN - Somebody had to step forward after Major
League Baseball nearly self-destructed in 1994. Somebody had to reach
out to a generation of alienated fans still smarting from the first
World Series cancellation in nearly a century. Somebody had to convince
us that baseball still mattered. Ripken was the obvious choice for all
the obvious reasons, but the reason he succeeded had less to do with his
squeaky-clean image and his pursuit of Lou Gehrig than it did with his
characteristically basic approach to the problem. He reached out to the
fans one at a time.

Night after night, he stood at the railing near the Orioles dugout and
signed autographs until the stadium lights dimmed and the ushers begged
to go home. He won the fans back both at home and away with a signature,
a handshake, a kind word. By the time 2,131 rolled around, he had become
a national symbol of baseball's rebirth. . .

Orioles fans embraced Ripken the day he arrived at Memorial Stadium and
have never let go. It is a love affair that Ripken has never taken for
granted. "I guess there's such a fever in Baltimore," Ripken said
recently. "You really understand the importance of baseball in all our
lives. I think the connection was inherent. It was always there." Don't
be surprised if you hear some things during his acceptance speech that
you've heard before. It's not as if Ripken has reconsidered anything
since he hung up his well-worn spikes. He's still teaching baseball the
same way Cal Ripken Sr. taught it 40 years ago. . .

[From articles culled by Al Krebs of the Agribusiness Examiner]

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