Cal Ripkin

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by ctorg

To my knowledge, I've never met anyone who didn't miss a day of school from K-8.

dola. You're right. K-8 is MUCH harder and probably doesn't happen very often. Mine was 8-12 and the Allen twins were 5-11 and 4-11.

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by JHruska

Here's the one I remember best (because it waswhen Ray Miller informed the world that he wouldn't sit Ripken, no matter what, until Ripken came and asked him to sit), but there were others. At the time, Ripken had a back problem that was causing him a lot of pain and some numbness in his fingers. And he still wouldn't sit.

In the 18 games from July 3-23, 1997, Ripken went 12 for 72 (.167), with 2 walks, and no homers. This wasn't one of the error-heavy stretches, but the ones of those that I remember came in has latter days at SS, and he was already at 3B in 97. Still, this was a guy who was injured, who was hurting his team very, very badly, and who still refused to sit, choosing his own personal glory over the good of the team. To make it even worse, this was after he had already broken the record, and was just extending his own every night. And he was batting fifth that whole time.

While I don't completely disagree with your argument, this one seems to somewhat flawed. I am sure there have been plenty of times in baseball history where a HOF caliber player has gone through a stretch like that and not been pulled.

Ripken went on to bat .321 (9 for 28) the following seven games in July. Ripken then went on to bat 6th starting August 1st and would continue to do so for just about every game the rest of that year. He batted .357 (35 for 98) during that August.

[flitchplate]

Originally Posted by briantheiceberg

Cal didn't turn baseball around. Sorry. What he did was nice and all for a personal achievement, but nothing more. I had perfect attendance from K to 8th grade. Big deal.

I want to pay you the respect of a response.

Cal Ripken represented all that is good about sports at a time when baseball was on the heels of a major work stoppage. I remeber those days like it was yesterday. Bur for review....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Ma...aseball_strike

The 1994 baseball strike resulted in the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. It lasted 232 days (August 12, 1994–April 2, 1995), led to the cancellation of 938 games overall, and dragged into the next spring. Baseball became the first sport in history to lose its postseason to a labor dispute. For the first time since 1904, there was no national professional baseball champion. It was the eighth work stoppage in baseball history and the fourth in-season work stoppage in 23 years.

On Opening Day in 1995, three men, who were each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the word "Greed", leaped onto the field at Shea Stadium and tossed more than $150 in $1 bills at players. In Cincinnati, one fan paid for a plane to fly over Riverfront Stadium that dragged a sign reading "Players and Owners — To Hell With You" The meager crowds at the openers often booed at the players for their rusty fundamentals, shoddy defense, and in response to frequent high-scoring contests. Fans in Pittsburgh disrupted Opening Day by throwing sticks on the field, and holding up the action for 17 minutes. Despite just 6,300 fans at the New York Yankees' pre-opening workout, 50,245 showed up for the opener, the smallest opening crowd at Yankee Stadium since 1990. Incidentally, the opening games were played with replacement umpires, the first time since 1984 that replacement umpires were used.

On August 3, 1995, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a bill calling for the partial repeal of baseball's antitrust exemption to the full Senate. The vote was just 9-8. On August 9, George Nicolau, baseball's impartial arbitrator since 1986, was fired by Major League owners.

On September 29, 1995, a three-judge panel in New York voted unanimously to uphold the injunction that brought the end to the strike in April 1995. The owners had appealed the injunction issued last March 31, but the panel said the Players Relations Committee had illegally attempted to eliminate free agency and salary arbitration.

The strike is largely blamed for the ultimate demise and relocation of the Montréal Expos. The team was forced to release many of its players to deal with the loss of revenue following the strike, and never again reached the same level of success they had in 1994. After the 2004 season, they moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals.

Some political analysts believed the 1994 mid-term elections were influenced by the strike as a negative connotation towards labor unions, and the dangers of the labor unions led to voters turning out against labor unions.

It also allowed Japanese baseball to develop into a legitimate showcase for players. Many members of the American baseball media went to Tokyo to cover the 1994 Japan Series, which made the cover of Sports Illustrated, which the magazine decided to cover as the Fall Classic.

Ichiro Suzuki of the Orix Blue Wave and Hideki Matsui of the Yomiuri Giants became well-known to American audiences through coverage of Japanese baseball which replaced MLB coverage in some media outlets. Matsui, a young 20-year old star, was part of the kyojin's championship run.

In 2001, 2002 and 2004, players who were part of the World Series winning Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels and Boston Red Sox were not permitted on commemorative merchandise because players on the teams were declared replacement players for their participation in spring training. The players who were noted are Damian Miller of the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, Brendan Donnelly of the 2002 Anaheim Angels and Kevin Millar of the 2004 Boston Red Sox.



AND THEN CAL RIPKEN broke the record that same year..............................

Baseball WAS BACK!!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv.../cal/front.htm



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...l/rip2131g.htm
On Top of Everything, He's the Game's Best Hope
By Michael Wilbon
Washington Post Columnist
September 7, 1995

BALTIMORE—Cal Ripken is doing something far more significant than preserving a playing streak, whether or not he knows it. He's saving baseball from itself. Every time he stays late into the night after a game in his uniform to sign autographs, he proves to be the receptacle for all those virtues we thought had left baseball forever. One Cal Ripken sure isn't enough; every club needs one. To hit and field and come to work every day because he feels he's the luckiest man on the face of the earth. To talk to children and sign autographs until his hand cramps, to appear at malls and charity events and Little League games and to take a victory lap around a stadium and slap hands while soaking up the dearest, sweetest admiration of a lifetime.

Baseball needs Ripken to play every day and every night because he is baseball's hope right now, its hope to recruit a new generation that is turning elsewhere for its sporting passions, its hope to lure parents and their children to the ballpark. How special does one man have to be to cover all of baseball's sins? In a season that has so little to celebrate, baseball is luckier than it deserves to have Ripken shift our focus to an accomplishment with which every man, woman and child can identify. If Major League Baseball had a lick of sense it would have forced every team in the majors to play Wednesday afternoon so that everybody associated with the sport -- particularly the players -- could have settled in to savor Wednesday night.

Please click link for more of this article.

[masoo]

Originally Posted by fantom1979

While I don't completely disagree with your argument, this one seems to somewhat flawed. I am sure there have been plenty of times in baseball history where a HOF caliber player has gone through a stretch like that and not been pulled.

I'm sure every HoF player has had similar bad stretches. Usually, when a player, even a superstar, in the middle of a long season, goes through a three-week stretch where he can't hit to save his life, the manager will give him a day off ... refresh the mind, refresh the legs ... it's a long season. Only in Ripken's case, the manager apparently said to himself "I don't care if he needs a day off, he's got a streak going and I'm not going to be the one to end it."

[masoo]

I appreciate how much Cal Ripken meant to flitchplate ... I, too, want to pay flitch the respect of a response.

Cal Ripken represented, FOR SOME PEOPLE, all that is good about sports. I have two kids myself, I take 'em to the ballgame, still do even though they are both long since grownup. When we talked about Ripken's streak, we took into account how many people found it a positive experience, but then I reminded them that the point of the game is not to set individual records but to help your team win the World Series. To my mind, Cal Ripken's streak represented someone putting himself above the team. I don't think Cal saw it that way ... I'm sure he thought he was doing his best for the team by showing up to play every day. But the result was good for the streak, whether or not it was good for the team. That is not "all that is good about sports."

But I certainly don't mean to suggest that the streak didn't mean all that you say it did, to you, and to many others.

As for the rest of the post, I teach critical thinking, and one thing we emphasize is that correlation does not imply causation. There was a labor dispute in MLB, and Cal Ripken had a long streak. Those two statements are fact. "AND THEN CAL RIPKEN broke the record that same year.............................. Baseball WAS BACK!!!!" implies a relationship between the strike and Ripken that doesn't necessarily exist. Nothing in what you've said proves that Ripken's streak caused baseball to be "back."

And Michael Wilbon is a fine writer who, like all of us, has his opinions. If he thought Ripken was "baseball's hope," and he is very articulate in saying so, all that means is that Wilton had an opinion and is an eloquent writer.

You might be right about all of this, flitch, and I appreciate that you've come here to take part in the discussion, which has taken off on a tangent because of something I said back near the beginning of the thread. Committed fans like yourself are baseball's hope as much as anything is. But there is more than one way to look at Ripken's streak.

[flitchplate]

masoo,

If you remember 1994 -1995 like I remember 1994-1995 then you know that baseball was in a bad way. At worst Ripken was a humble ambassador for a sport wounded by labor strife. At best (and maybe only an Orioles fan could see this since he is one of our own) he provided the lift in a sport reeling after a season ending strike that stole from all of us October baseball.

You might be skeptical about my using cause and effect to prop Ripken further than he deserves. So to that point I would ask you to provide me some evidence in writing that would deny Ripken this pedastal that I set him upon. No New York papers please. All the evidence that I can come up with tells me what I already know. Major League Baseball was HURTING in the reputation department following the strike. "The streak" had some effect. NO?

As to your point about "the streak" being an individual record?

Name one sport MORE obsessed with individual records and performance than Major League Baseball. I would politely suggest that there is NO other sport so enchanted by individual accomplishment than baseball. No sport that tabulates statistics (to the benefit of games such as these) in thirty different ways. And no sport that REWARDS individual performance better than baseball. No sport that is tuned into one on one matchups and allows the actions of one player (Bill Buckner OR Reggie Jackson) to have such an impact on a single game or a whole season.

How many power hitters, if they shortened their stroke, would strikeout less and improve their teams chance of winning. How many RBI champions should give their trophy to their leadoff hitter whos OBP is skyhigh? How many batting average champions should kiss the ground of the dangerous hitter right behind them?

In the end, the only question worth asking about Ripken's streak is who was on their bench that would have produced a better 4-5 AB and 3-6 fielding chances per game? The short answer is the Orioles did not have a better option.

Was not having a viable backup at shortstop a weakness that robbed the Orioles TEAM of a chance to win a World Championship? Speaking as a fan and student of Orioles baseball I would suggest to you that it made no negative impact on the field over the course of the season. And if anything his determination and personal sacrifice caused his team mates to strive harder in hopes of matching him. In the long run this was a net benefit for the team.

Now you might be able to post media reports when Ripken would slump and the journalists were looking for raw meat. But that was all that it was....journalists looking for raw meat and a tasty article to satisfy the sports page editor.

[bogieman]

Yes, Feagles holds the record for the most consecutive games played in the NFL. But he is a punter and has played in the era of 16 game seasons. The previous owner was Jim Marshall who played every game for 20 years 1960-1979, 282 games as defensive lineman with Cleveland (1960) and Minnesota (1961-1979).

http://www.thefootballsearchengine.c...arshall/facts/

[Curtis]

Thank you for finding that. Marshall wasn't one of the half-dozen guys who came up in my Google search. That IS much more impressive.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally Posted by flitchplate

Name one sport MORE obsessed with individual records and performance than Major League Baseball. I would politely suggest that there is NO other sport so enchanted by individual accomplishment than baseball. No sport that tabulates statistics (to the benefit of games such as these) in thirty different ways. And no sport that REWARDS individual performance better than baseball. No sport that is tuned into one on one matchups and allows the actions of one player (Bill Buckner OR Reggie Jackson) to have such an impact on a single game or a whole season.

Well, pretty much every individual sport values individual statistics more than baseball, and there are a lot of them.

About Doug Jarvis, not only is he the NHL's iron man (which I think is more significant than baseball due to it more physically demanding than baseball, especially for a forward like Jarvis), but he also holds the record for assistant coach for the longest tenure with a franchise, with 14.

[Comedian2004]

Injury ratings are hard to simulate in baseball. Was the guy injured or was he just a backup?

I suggested a couple of things related to this, but it was too late in the beta to try to implement them, but they are in the system for future versions or future patches (if we get lucky)

I envisioned this:

A CEI file, that would look like this: (note: I am making dates up, the correct dates would have to be researched)

J.R. Richard,6-8-1980,Stroke
Tim Crews,7-1-1999,boating accident
Rick Burrelson,2-1-1980,Rotary Cuff

Then on those dates, the players would have thier real life CEI happen.

Also, a war list:

Ted Williams,1943,1944
Joe Smith, 1943

Those players would be unavailable for those years, but would stay on the same teams and come back after the years by their names

As far as Iron Men, a simple check would be nice:

If games played/team games > 98 percent then player can only be injured for current game and would not sit because of fatigue.

Injury ratings for pitchers are even harder to determine. Did he not play because he was injured or because he was in a slump?

In the old strato- days, I had a nifty chart that you would look at and roll die to determine the result of the 2-12 Line drive double play, plus player was injured. It actually worked pretty well back then.

[masoo]

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

J.R. Richard,6-8-1980,Stroke
Tim Crews,7-1-1999,boating accident
Rick Burrelson,2-1-1980,Rotary Cuff

There ought to be a place for Damon Rutherford somewhere in there.