Ripken Media Session, 5/26/95, Seattle
Q: Is it safe to assume that you'll be suited up and playing tonight?
A:"I think it'd be safe to assume that, yes."
Q: I've always wanted to ask you why not, if you're feeling down and tired and you've got a bruise here and there, why not take the day off?
A:"I don't know. I guess I was always told that my approach should be, if you come to the ball game, you should want to play. You should want to be in there. It's a team game. Therefore, your teammates count on you and it's the only game that's going on today. So, I don't know...simply put, the way my father always used to tell me, 'if you come to the ballpark, if you can play and you want to play and the manager wants you to play, then you should play. So, I've always come to the ballpark with that idea. Fortunately enough, I've always been in the lineup."
Q: How close have you come to saying 'Man, I want a day off'.
A:"There's a lot of times mentally and physically through the course of a season where you're not going to be at 100 percent. That's a given with the 162-game schedule. But, I've had some of my very best days when I felt physically the worst. The only time you really consider it is if it will give you some sort of a mental lift. But, I think if you're able to not get too high when you're doing well and not being too down on yourself when you're not, if you're able to keep a nice even frame of mind, that helps you get through the season. So, to me, taking the day off has never been the answer to getting my swing right or getting my head right or anything else. It was always, work a little bit harder, don't run away from it, just keep going at it and everything will come out just right. It's just always been my approach."
Q: Didn't you have kind of a close call two years ago against the Mariners? You had a big brawl. Did you get hurt in that brawl somehow?
A:"When all the people were running towards the mound, I was running to stop people from jumping on top of the pile and the grass was saturated and the grass just gave way at the same time I was turning to do that..I wrenched my knee. And at the time, I felt it pop but I didn't think it was really hurt. The next day I woke up it was very stiff and I couldn't really walk around that well so I thought if it stays this way there's no way I'll be ready to play tonight. As luck would have, it you work it out, you start walking around and when I got to the ballpark I tried it out and everything was fine. Yeah, that was a close call."
Q: For a minute or for awhile were you thinking this could be it, this could be the end of it?
A:"No doubt about it. I got up that morning and again, it wasn't your first thought and when you put your foot out of the bed you land on your leg, you go 'ooh', then you immediately remember what happened and you start to walk around and I guess that's the stiffest it's going to be the whole day. I thought it wasn't seeming to get any better for the first hour or two hours. I thought if it doesn't get any better, I can't play this way.'
Q: What would it take to get you out of the lineup?
A:"I don't know. When you play 162 games or you play 140 games or 81 games or whether you play 60 games, you're going to have physical injuries. You're going to have small injuries, nagging injuries, that you're going to have to play with. You slide into the second base wrong, you might hyper extend your elbow or you jam your finger or you get hit with a pitch. You still play through all those no matter if you play 162 games... I've been very fortunate, very lucky to stay away from any serious injury, but the nagging injures in some weird way, it's my way of rationalizing things sometimes. Sometimes I get really hot when you have some sort of nagging injury because for example, I mentioned you hyperextend your arm trying to avoid a tag. That happened to me in Seattle and here one time. I went to the on deck circle the next at bat I started swinging the bat and it hurt to swing the bat, but it didn't hurt when you swung the bat and hit the ball. So, that it made your concentration or made you just more conscious of not swinging and missing, shortening up your swing, just making contact. I went on one of the hottest streaks of my career just because I didn't try to do too much. Once you've done that once or twice you can always say maybe this injury will help me, maybe it won't hurt me, maybe it will help me stay within myself. So, that's just the way I deal with it."
Q: Does the streak mean anything to you or do you feel like you're just a byproduct of the whole thing?
A:"I guess it has meaning but different from the meaning that everyone else thinks about it. I don't come out here and play every single day so that's one more game that adds on to the streak. For me, I've always been taught, I've always been brought up that baseball's a team game or whatever team you play in. But, since I grew up in baseball and my Dad's was with professional baseball, then you play every single day. In an individual game, no one's going to help you hit the ball. No one's going to help you field the ball or throw the ball. There's a lot of individual performances within that game that in order to win you'll all have to put those individual performances together. We all have to count on the hitters in front of us to get on base. You have to count on the guys behind you to drive you in. You've got to count on the second baseman to complete the double play everybody has to count on each other in the lineup
and if you all work together then you can be successful. You don't have to get the game winning hit to contribute to a win. Sometimes, like with Eddie Murray, my former teammate, he was important. He could be 0 for 80 or 0 for 100 and you put him in the fourth spot in the order and his presence alone would help you win a game. What made the other manager make a move in the seventh inning was because he was there and in the lineup. He gave protection to me even if he wasn't hitting. Of all those different intangibles, I was always taught that it was important for you to be in the lineup. It's important for you to be there for your teammates to try to win each and every game. That's the approach I've taken and I'm proud of the fact that I know what it takes to count on your teammates. I'm proud of the fact that my teammates can count on me to be in there every game."
Q: Aren't you proud of what you've accomplished?
A:"I try not to think about that. I try not to bring any level of importance to it other than, I never set out to do it. I really enjoy the game, I've been lucky. I want to be in the lineup, but beyond that, I don't know what it means. I come out here to play everyday and try to worry about today. Once this game's over, worry about tomorrow. It's just the way I've always approached it and I don't put any more importance on it than there is. In a lot of ways I just feel fortunate and lucky to have the opportunity to play and secondly, because I've been able to stay away from any serious injuries that would stop me from playing.
Q: When do/did you start thinking about the streak?
A:"Only when I'm asked about it. The streak was probably born maybe 500, 600 games into it. I don't remember early on having to answer questions about the streak so much until it got to three, four or five years where you hadn't missed a game. It just seems like the story was always (how I did) in that particular game or how your team's doing than from when the streak was born when I started to have to deal with the streak."
Q: Have you gone out and maybe studied up on the writing of Lou Gehrig and his streak?
A:"As a baseball fan, of course I'm curious about every baseball player but Lou Gehrig... I'm a little fearful of learning about him; only because my approach is genuine. My approach is how I was taught; it has nothing to do with Lou Gehrig. I don't go out there and play to extend the streak and I'm fearful that if you start learning about Lou Gehrig, that you'll start to be obsessed with the idea of the streak. That's counter productive to me. I don't want to be obsessed with it. People have given me a book or an article or a baseball card or any number of things about Lou Gehrig thinking that since we have this consecutive game streak in common, that it's natural I'd want to know about it. I'm curious, but, I put them away in a box and after my days are over or after this whole thing is over maybe I'll sit down and look at it and from a baseball fan's perspective. I just look at it from that side."
Q: Will you take a day off when it's over?
A:"It's difficult to answer any kind of hypothetical question (like) what are you going to do at this point in time. I'd like to think that if it happens that the next day would be exactly the same as the day before. If I'm able to play, I'll keep the same approach. We all change our perspectives as we get older and we all change how we look at things and how we think about things. I'd like to think that the next day I'll just go about my business the same way I did the day before."
Q: Henry Aaron said about his home run record that a lot of his other accomplishments were overlooked; his gold glove for example, and I think Gehrig's RBI's have kind of been put behind other exhibits. Your individual accomplishments, you've talked about the team aspect, does it make it easier not to have to deal with your individual stuff like the streak?
A:"I think I just prefer to never really have to answer any questions about your individual performances. But I know that's part of the game and we who love baseball love statistics and love to compare one era to another era. It's a special part of the game and your real focus is what can I do to help us win. Everyone should ask themselves what can I do in the course of this game to help us win. It might be turning the double play. It might be walking ahead of Harold Baines who hit a triple. My identity early on has become the streak and in some ways it's become a distraction because you have to deal with that. Whereas you really want to maintain your focus on one day at a time, one game at a time and the streak has sometimes caused me to look at things beyond one day bat a time. Sometimes individual performances can act as a distraction to you because you start to change the focus or change what you really should be going out to do. You really shouldn't be talking about how hot you are or how cold you are; just I'm in the lineup and I want to help us win.
Q: If people associate you so much with the streak right now, what if a lot of people forget that in 1983 you won a world's championship, you were the MVP that year. Does 1983 seem like a long time ago for you?
A:"Very long, yes. I came on the big leagues, had a chance to establish myself as an everyday player on a very good team and we won. My first year we went to the last set of the season before we lost to Milwaukee, which was a really exciting season and made for an exciting weekend. And the next year we went on to win the World Series. Looking back on it, I think that maybe I had taken that for granted too much. I was in my second year. I was young and trying to get everything going. All the sudden you win or you win the World Series. I think that it's been a long time and I've never been back...never been to the playoffs. I think if I had the opportunity to go back to the playoffs or to the World Series now; I'd be in a position to appreciate it a whole lot more having gone through 0 and 21 starts, having gone through losing a 100 and some games. When I first came into the big leagues, I thought that after the first two years it was going to be the same throughout then whole career but because it hasn't and because we have lost and because I have endured a rebuilding process I'd love to get back to the World Series and feel that feeling again."
Q: People project that if you play three or four years in the context of the streak, well what about getting back to the post season? Does that give you more than the streak right now?
A:"No doubt about it. I think. I would like this year to be remembered as the year the Orioles won and not so much the year my consecutive game streak went to whatever it is. We all set out to play this game and you derive the most satisfaction and the most fun out of winning. Sure you'd like to get the game winning hit; sure you'd like to turn the double play in the eighth inning. You get full gratification only by winning. A consecutive game streak can't replace that."
© Copyright The Washington Post
Back to the top
