Ryan Ripken retiring from pro ball
Ryan Ripken, the son of Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., announced his retirement from pro baseball Friday after a seven-season run in the minor leagues.
Ripken began his career in 2014 after the Washington Nationals selected him in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball draft. The Orioles had drafted Ripken out of the Gilman School in Baltimore in the 20th round two years earlier, but Ripken opted to attend college, first at South Carolina and then at Indian River State in Florida.
Ripken primarily played first base and right field, although he struggled to advance through the Nationals’ pipeline before he was released in 2017. He soon signed a minor league deal with Baltimore, joining the organization for which his father set the consecutive games played record, and progressed as high as the Triple-A Norfolk Tides in 2021, hitting .167 across 48 games. He also received an invitation to Orioles spring training before the 2021 season, having spent time working out with his father to prepare for his chance in Sarasota, Florida.
“It’s probably the most time my dad and I had been able to work with each other consecutively in my lifetime,” Ripken said in February 2021. “To train with baseball and work with him each day was a blessing.”
MLB: A San Diego woman who alleges Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer beat and sexually abused her has denied that any of the accusations were “false, fabricated, or bogus,” her attorneys said in a court filing. Bauer has denied abusing the woman he met through social media. He sued her for defamation in April.
Cycling: Christophe Laporte ended the host’s drought of stage winners when he surged out of the peloton in the finale of the 19th stage and claimed his maiden win on the Tour de France on Friday. Just two days before the race ends in Paris, Laporte spared the blushes for French riders who had not tasted a victory all month. Only twice in race history has France not produced a stage winner, in 1926 and 1999.
Mountain climbing: A woman from Pakistan and another from Iran appeared to be the first from their countries to scale K2, the world’s second-highest mountain and one of the most dangerous summits, a mountaineering official said Friday. A second Pakistani woman scaled the summit minutes later. Samina Baig, a 32-year-old from a remote northern village in Pakistan, was the first to hoist her country’s green and white flag atop the peak of the 28,250 foothigh (8,610 meter) K2. Iran’s Afsaneh Hesamifard followed shortly after and was hailed for her achievement in Farsi-language posts on social media.
Tennis: The Big Four are forming quite a squad at the Laver Cup, with Novak Djokovic joining Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray on Team Europe in September. Event organizers announced Friday that Djokovic will participate. He won Wimbledon this month for his 21st Grand Slam title. That puts him one ahead of Federer and one behind Nadal for the most by a man in tennis history. Murray owns three major championships. That quartet has combined to win 66 of the past 76 Grand Slam trophies, and each has spent time at No. 1 in the ATP rankings.