By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 22, 1998; Page C4

BALTIMORE, Sept. 21 – Mike Gibbons was settling into his seat 10 rows behind the Baltimore Orioles' dugout at Oriole Park at Camden Yards Sunday night when the players took the field. As rookie Ryan Minor trotted across the first-base line, Gibbons wondered: Where's he going?

In a minute or two, all the Orioles players were in position, and a whispered question shot around the stadium like electricity: "Where's Cal?" People looked at each other, stunned. Then up on the scoreboard flashed the lineup. And there it was. Minor at third. And no Cal Ripken.

For the first time in 16 years, after 2,632 games, the man who had symbolized for America – and especially for Baltimore – the working man's, stick-it-out, lunch-pail ethic was taking a day off. Gibbons said there was a kind of collective stadium sigh – of affection and relief. The Streak was over.

Today, following Ripken's decision to end his string of consecutive games, on the last home game of the season, the ballpark was padlocked. Ticket windows were shuttered. But in one of the most famed baseball neighborhoods in the country – Babe Ruth was born two blocks away – there was talk that Ripken had done it right.

"I think he did a good job," said Lanard Smith, 36, a carpenter who was helping to refurbish a house on Parkland Street a few blocks from the stadium. "I think it was good he stepped down. ... It makes room for somebody else. Everybody needs a chance.

"Cal earned everything he got. Time for him to lay back and relax."

Co-worker John Humble, 37, of Edgewood, noted that though Ripken had been "the talk of the town," he had always remained "a family-oriented guy."

And he had many in Baltimore, in all walks of life, trying to emulate him, Humble said. Get up, go to work every day, "try to do the old Cal Ripken streak."

Down the street at the Strike Three Bar and Lounge, owner Bill Barnes, 70, of Columbia, said Ripken "did the right thing, by retiring [the streak] here in Baltimore. I'm glad he wasn't forced to do it."

"He did a lot for this town," Barnes said. "He was the franchise. He was the main man." And the record, he said, will likely never be broken. "It'll never happen," he predicted. "As long as you live, or me."

Fans' appreciation of Ripken, already deep and wide, spread even to the Maryland Lottery today. Seven million dollars was wagered on the numbers 2-6-3-2 in Maryland's "Pick 4" game, officials said. "We all love Cal, and this is the Pick 4 player's way of showing it," said Lottery Director Buddy Roogow.

And Gibbons, 51, the executive director of the museum at Ruth's Emory Street birthplace, said Ripken also had bequeathed to Baltimore one of the great chapters in baseball history.

Ripken's decision to end the streak the way he did – removing himself from the lineup – packaged it in a way, Gibbons said, boxing it up as an historic feat and bringing its creator a step closer to the museum's Orioles Hall of Fame room to join the likes of that other Orioles "Iron Man," Joe McGinnity, who pitched 380 innings for the National League Orioles in 1899.

"The moment is one of the most significant in Baltimore baseball, if not in all of major league baseball history," Gibbons said. "It's a major deal. ... For this generation of baseball fans, for our sons and daughters, this is one of the significant baseball moments."

Moreover, he said, it is a moment that is unique. Amid the modern dearth of heroes, Ripken's record "is all about the American work ethic, as we knew it, and know it. It is dedication to yourself, and to your team. That sounds a little corny. But it's probably true. It's the American ideal."