The Bird Tapes Interview: Cal Ripken Jr. (Part 2)

It's hard to remember or believe now, but at times during his historic consecutive-games streak, the Ironman endured his share of criticism for playing every day.

During a recent podcast interview, a host with Mid-Atlantic roots asked me if today’s sports fans understood that Cal Ripken Jr.’s historic consecutive-games streak actually was controversial at times as it unfolded.

My response was no, that rail of the Ripken narrative has been utterly lost and forgotten.

But it’s certainly true.

While playing in 2,632 straight games between 1982 and 1998, Ripken understandably experienced a ton of love, especially around the time when he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, a mark many had considered unbreakable. But Ripken also endured criticism, especially when he slumped at the plate, prompting speculation that he might benefit from taking a day off and actually was hurting the Orioles by refusing to sit.

Toward the end of my vintage interview with him, recorded in 1999 and available below to paid Bird Tapes subscribers, it’s clear that line of conversation was still relatively fresh in his mind, even though he’d ended the streak a year earlier. He pointedly emphasizes that he never played a single game with the streak in mind.

I had gone into the interview with a list of subjects I wanted him to cover, including his origins in the game, playing for his father, his thoughts on what happened to the Orioles in the late 1980s and more. His streak was also on the list, obviously, but I waited until near the end of our conversation to bring it up because it wasn’t his favorite subject — yes, that’s true — and potentially might curdle the atmosphere.

It turned out he was happy to discuss it and make clear his underlying motivations for having played every day for so long.

There’s a whole lot more to the interview, the first half of which was posted last week. By the time we sat down in 1999, I had covered more Ripken-themed occasions than I could count for the Baltimore Sun. One of my favorites was his 1996 passing of the world consecutive-games streak record, held by a Japanese player, Sachio Kinugasa. Now retired, Kinugasa flew to Kansas City to watch Ripken pass him and the two Ironmen hit it off enormously despite not speaking each other’s native language.

My point is I had covered Ripken for a long time by the time we sat down in 1999, and listening to our conversation a quarter-century later, that familiarity is evident.