Iron streak, golden memory
It's been 25 years since Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's major league record for consecutive games played, a feat the Orioles star punctuated with an unforgettable lap around Camden Yards in the middle of his 2,131st successive start.
Since reaching that milestone on Sept. 6, 1995, Ripken has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, battled prostate cancer and, just recently, celebrated his 60th birthday.
“I tell you what, in some respects it seems like it was yesterday. You can relive the moment, and everything is crystal clear,” Ripken said recently. “In other ways, it seems like it's another lifetime. Twentyfive years is a long period of time. Things move on. We all move on.”
No matter where he goes, Ripken usually runs into folks who claim to have been in the sellout crowd.
“People tell me all the time they were at that game,” Ripken said. “It seems like there were a heck of lot more who tell me that than 40-some thousand people who were actually there.”
Those in the crowd included President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Hall of Fame members Joe DiMaggio and Frank Robinson. More important, at least as far as Ripken was concerned, his father, Cal Sr., watched the proceedings from a suite.
Cal wasted no time making eye contact with his dad after the fifth inning, when the game became official and was stopped so the baseball world could celebrate the accomplishment of the athlete known as “The Iron Man.”