In the mid-2010s, my writing life was easily describable as “all football all the time.” Long gone from the newspaper business, I had a day job writing columns for the Baltimore Ravens’ website. And my three most recent books were on pro football history.
It was all good, no complaints. But I missed baseball.
I’d written hundreds (actually probably thousands) of articles and columns on baseball for the Baltimore Sun in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Hard as it is to fathom now, Baltimore didn’t have a pro football team in those post-Colts, pre-Ravens years, and I woke up every day knowing I probably couldn’t write anything on any subject that would be better read than a column about the Orioles.
I’d learned in those years that baseball provided a writer with a deep well of storytelling possibilities. Years later, while in the midst of cranking out books and columns on football in the 2010s, I felt the need to tap that well again.
Needing a subject a publisher would find enticing, I realized I had one right in front of me. During my years of writing so much about baseball, one of the biggest stories in the sport’s history unfolded in Baltimore when the Orioles’ Cal Ripken Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive games, setting an all-time endurance record that fascinated the entire sports world.
I was writing sports in Baltimore for most of the 16 years it took for Ripken to make history. Years later, the streak was starting to recede as a memory, making it suitable for renewed study and a fresh re-telling.
My publisher immediately signed off on the idea, and in 2017, after several years of researching, interviewing and writing, I published The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball’s Most Historic Record.
The response was gratifying. Sports Illustrated called it one of the best sports books of the year. It was a finalist for the Society of American Baseball Research’s Casey Award, which honors the best baseball book of the year. It was short-listed for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting, which honors the best sports books of the year.
In a generous review, the Washington Post wrote that it “succeeded as … a love letter to the game,” which certainly cut to the heart of why I wrote it.
Anyway, thus far in the Bird Tapes, my Substack on Orioles history, I’ve only referenced the earlier book I wrote on the team, From 33rd Street to Camden Yards — an oral history published in 2001. But as I continually search for storytelling ideas that keep the Bird Tapes interesting and fresh, I had an “ah-ha” realization that The Streak is an untapped resource.
It’s time to do something about that.
Starting with this post, I’m going to add a new content stream to the Bird Tapes mix: occasional podcasts in which I read selected passages from The Streak, audiobook-style.
Today’s debut post features three passages about the night when Ripken broke Gehrig’s record at Camden Yards. Part 1 tells one of my favorite stories from that night, about Rex Hudler, a former Oriole who played second base for the visiting California Angels that night. Part 2 is about why Gehrig’s teammate, Joe DiMaggio, felt the need to be on hand. Part 3 is my recreation of the 22-minute victory lap around the field that Ripken took in the middle of the fifth inning, after he’d officially passed Gehrig.
Hope you enjoy. More is coming.
