When Ripken’s Ironman Streak Was Under Fire

Here’s an audiobook-style excerpt from my book about Ripken’s historic feat that focuses on the controversy generated by his desire to play every day.

A decade or so ago, when I interviewed Cal Ripken Jr. for The Streak — my book about his consecutive-games streak and the entire history of endurance in baseball — he told me that Orioles legend Frank Robinson had contemplated ending the streak several times as the manager of the Orioles in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Robinson told him that years later, Ripken said. Although he obviously never acted on the impulse, Robinson apparently thought about resting Ripken when the shortstop was slumping, figuring that taking a day off and removing the burden of the streak from his shoulders would help Ripken perform better.

This was newsworthy, I thought. Robinson certainly never divulged such thinking in real time, when it would’ve generated major headlines. Had he really considered ending the streak long before Ripken passed Lou Gehrig and became baseball’s all-time Ironman?

When I interviewed Robinson for the book, he firmly denied it — writing Ripken’s name into the lineup was the first thing he’d done every day when he managed the Orioles, he told me.

Wherever the truth resided, the interviews unearthed a rail of the Ripken narrative that has been overlooked and largely forgotten — namely, that the streak was controversial at times as it unfolded.

While playing in 2,632 straight games between 1982 and 1998, Ripken experienced a ton of love, especially around the time when he broke Gehrig’s record, 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. Some critics even suggested Ripken actually was hurting the Orioles by refusing to sit.

I’m attaching to this post a podcast episode in which I read an excerpt from The Streak that focuses on how Ripken confronted the scrutiny he faced when he wasn’t hitting. It’s the second Bird Tapes podcast episode in which I read from The Streak. To hear the first, click here.

(Note: Sports Illustrated called The Streak, published in 2017, 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.)

BaltimoreBaseball.com is delighted to be partnering with John Eisenberg, the author and longtime Baltimore sports columnist, whose latest venture is an Orioles history project called The Bird Tapes. Available via subscription at birdtapes.substack.com/subscribe, the Bird Tapes is built around a set of vintage interviews with Orioles legends that Eisenberg recorded a quarter-century while writing a book about the team. Paid subscribers can hear the interviews, which have been digitized to make them easily consumable. The Bird Tapes also includes new writing on Orioles history from Eisenberg, who is the author of 11 books, including two on the Orioles. BaltimoreBaseball.com will publish Eisenberg’s new writing.

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Jon Miller
Davey Johnson
Earl Weaver
Fred Lynn
Al Bumbry
Peter Angelos
Rick Dempsey
Elrod Hendricks
Mike Flanagan
Eddie Murray
Ken Singleton
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Boog Powell
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Paul Blair

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