Cal Ripken Sayings

#1. Of course I think a 10-year investment would be in a team's best interest. Look at Cal Ripken Jr., that guy was around until he was like 40 ... Not that I'm going to be in my 40s at the end of the 10-year deal or anything.

Miguel Tejada

#2. If Albert Einstein was right, Cal Ripken should have been a CEO or politician rather than a shortstop, because Ripken led by example over and over ... and over again.

Don Yaeger

#3. Whether your name is (Lou) Gehrig or (Cal) Ripken, (Joe) DiMaggio or (Jackie) Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. That's all I've ever tried to do.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#4. There was nothing to keep him (Cal Ripken, Jr.) from being a star in the Major Leagues. That was inevitable.

Earl Weaver

#5. I'm not head-strong, and I'm not egotistical. I understand certain things better now. I won't be trying to be play everyday. There's only one Cal Ripken, one Lou Gehrig and one Joe DiMaggio. What is good for them isn't necessarily good for Eric Davis.

Eric Davis

#6. Cal Ripken is steady, he focuses on his job, and he's a good guy.

Bradley Whitford

#7. When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?'

Cal Ripken Jr.

#8. I kept thinking, 'this must be the coolest job - I'd like to be a professional baseball player.' They were getting paid to play a game, and what a cool lifestyle that was.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#9. Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#10. When you're an athlete and you play every day and are conditioning yourself every year, the aging is gradual.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#11. I've been asked to interview for many managing jobs, and I never said yes because I was never serious about it, and I thought it would be wrong to go through that process.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#12. A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#13. Quite frankly, I don't miss standing in the box or standing on the field playing.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#14. Leadership isn't about simply being in charge and treating your people like soldiers and barking orders. Leadership is sharing your knowledge and your direction so that others grow and reach their potential.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#15. Whether it was Little League or playing with your brothers or sisters, that was always a problem. If I would lose - because I very rarely lost - then everything would go crazy.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#16. By far, the best moment of my big league career was when I caught the last out at the World Series.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#17. I stayed attached to baseball through the kids and through minor league baseball, and I'm very satisfied with the schedule it allows me to have, which means I'm home until my kids go off to college. I value that time.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#18. The streak has become my identity; it's who I've become.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#19. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you couldn't say you were better than the other person because you knew you had a secret. You knew you had cheated.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#20. The best thing you can do in the whole world is to play baseball. That's a lucky job ... The passion for baseball is always going to be there.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#21. The doctor said I should do a lot of walking, so I walk to the mound nine or ten times a game.

Cal Ripken, Sr.

#22. My dad was part of the Oriole way. I think he was there 14 years in the minor leagues; I think seven of those years, they had the same people in place. So it was about continuity. It was about stability.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#23. My approach to every game was to try to erase the games that were before and try to focus on the game at hand.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#24. So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it's almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#25. Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#26. Different styles work for different guys ... If you can handle shortstop and hit, teams will find a way to pencil you into the lineup.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#27. Your job as a baseball player is to come to the park ready to play every day, and the manager, it's his job to make those decisions about who plays.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#28. Being elected to the Hall of Fame is about your career pretty much and your impact on the game.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#29. There have been times in my life when I felt compelled to write things down as a matter of therapy, but whatever I kept about those days, I shredded. It was too personal.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#30. The older you get, the things that you thought you wanted to do when you were younger, you're checking them off your list because you no longer want to them.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#31. I'd like to be remembered. I'd like to think that someday two guys will be talking in a bar and one of them will say something like, 'Yeah, he's a good shortstop, but he's not as good as ole Ripken was.'

Cal Ripken Jr.

#32. I don't mind being described as vanilla in certain ways.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#33. One person's going to win, and everybody else is going to not win. So let's not feel like we're losers. Let's utilize the cultural opportunities, get to know the other players on the other team, look around you, enjoy your world series.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#34. I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field ... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV ... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#35. That's the result of the black cloud on baseball, .. Until it's rid of steroids, people are naturally going to think that.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#36. Even though my dad was a manager in the minor leagues, I still traveled around with him and saw it from the field out. Now, as an owner, you're kind of looking from the whole baseball activity from outside in, from a fan's perspective.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#37. Baseball can be slow in many ways. The action starts with when the pitcher delivers the ball. But the action really starts when the crack of the bat happens.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#38. I did make a choice when I got away from baseball to be there to get my kids off to college.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#39. I always thought being a gamer and someone who had a sense of responsibility to the game and to my teammates was the honorable thing.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#40. When you are away from the game and busy with other areas, you realize that the world does not revolve around baseball.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#41. We consider ourselves the luckiest fans on the face of the Earth.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#42. You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#43. As long as I can compete, I won't quit. Reaching three-thousand is not the finish line as long as I can contribute.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#44. You learn as a player not to listen to the criticism. Many of the people who put out that criticism might not be as accomplished, might not understand the game as well from the inside-out.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#45. I'm always flattered when someone thinks of me as a potential commissioner of baseball.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#46. I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#47. I'm not trying to be a star on TV. I am who I am, which I hope comes out. I have a little bit of a different sense than most people know, and it takes a while to get used to it.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#48. I had one of my best years in 1991; I was 31. I made a renewed effort to work harder. I got better at my diet. I paid attention to how much sleep I got. I was always someone of routine. I became more strict.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#49. The game of baseball is made up of many little things. If we do all the little things right, then we'll never have a big thing to worry about

Cal Ripken, Sr.

#50. I didn't just show up
for work, as has sometimes been said. I also
showed up to work.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#51. Early in my career, I decided I never wanted to get out of shape.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#52. I had trouble with my temper all the way through the minor leagues.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#53. As long as I can compete, I won't quit.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#54. When you're in the day-to-day grind, it just seems like it's another step along the way. But I find joy in the actual process, the journey, the work. It's not the end. It's not the end event.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#55. All I really try and do is live up to my potential and do as well as I possibly could and to bring to the ballpark each and every day a good effort and do the best that I could each and every day.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#56. I never understood that when I heard people retire - they said they missed being around the guys. I don't have a need to make a play in the ninth inning of a game anymore. But being on the inside and being part of a team is something that you really do value and you really do miss.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#57. I don't love the idea of the responsibility falling on the manager. That just adds to their in-game responsibility.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#58. If you do a job, do it right or there is no point.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#59. I lived the baseball life as a kid, with my dad in it. And I lived the baseball life as an adult, because I was in it. When I retired, I wanted the opportunity to be a little bit more flexible and home-based for my kids.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#60. Normally, some people think about 50 as a big moment in life. I kind of think 30 because in your baseball career, 30 was considered on top kind of looking at the end of your career. So I remember thinking about 30 in different ways, but 50 just seems like another step right now.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#61. I had aches and pains when I played. No player is ever 100 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. Guys that play 158 or 162 or 145, we are all in the same boat.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#62. I love baseball. The game allowed me the influence to impact kids in a positive way. This gives me a chance to talk to some social issues.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#63. I see myself as extremely lucky.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#64. The last thing you want to do is go down in the history of All-Star game competition as the only injury (his nose was broken by Roberto Hernandez) sustained during the team picture.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#65. You don't project yourself in the Hall of Fame as a player. It's only during that five-year period where people start asking about it, and it doesn't seem real until it happens.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#66. I have goals and ambitions, and I see myself as a lifelong baseball student. I have certain philosophies that I'd like to test at some point at the big league level. The job of manager appeals to me, a coach appeals to me, at a different time frame.

Cal Ripken Jr.

#67. Get in the game. Do the best you can. Try to make a contribution. Learn from today. Apply it to tomorrow.

Cal Ripken Jr.