Some Ripken reflections on 2,131 and more on his cancer diagnosis

As the latest anniversary of Cal Ripken Jr.'s record-setting night approaches, he spun a popular question usually directed at himself while speaking with a group of local beat writers yesterday on a Zoom conference call. The proverbial shoe placed on the other foot.

Does it really seem like it's been 25 years since he surpassed Lou Gehrig for most consecutive games played at 2,131? Since he took that glorious lap around the warning track while bathed in an ovation that lasted more than 22 minutes?

The unbreakable record left shattered on the field at Camden Yards on Sept. 6, 1995.

"How's it feel to you, because it's the same 25 years?" Ripken said with a laugh.

"In some respects, it seems like it was yesterday, where you can relive the moment. Everything is really crystal clear, a wonderful moment. In other ways, it seems like it's another lifetime. I mean, 25 years is a long period of time, things move on, we all move on."

There aren't many reporters still on the beat who provided coverage of 2,130 and 2,131. The columnists have left for other jobs or retired. But MASN and some national networks have replayed the games on numerous occasions, doing it again while baseball shut down over the summer, and Ripken made the decision to go from honored guest to a viewer.

He didn't just drop in for a few innings. He committed to the entire night, including the postgame ceremonies.

ESPN made Ripken part of its telecast, allowing him to provide commentary and share memories of 2,131.

"I will say that there was a freshness recently when I watched the whole broadcast," he said. "I hadn't done that before and I saw some things. I remember seeing Earl Weaver's interview during the game, which I didn't see before. And he said (something) like, 'When I moved him to short, I was just hoping to get through the weekend.' So that was different.

"So there was a freshness, a perspective, which I'm glad I did it. Not really reliving it so much, but keeping the memory alive in my mind, from my perspective, how I saw it. But it was really cool to see some of the things I never saw before earlier."

If Ripken needs any more reminders, he can always find fans who approach him with an eagerness to share their own memories. They want to talk about it and thank him. But there are a few snapshots that belong only to him.

The brief interaction with Hall of Famer Rod Carew, an Angels coach who joined the line in front of the visiting dugout to applaud and congratulate him. And of course, the quick glance at his father, Cal Sr., as they both fought back tears.

"Here was a guy, old school in almost everything, I guess including sharing his feelings as a parent," Ripken said. "He didn't really go around and say, 'I love you, I love you, I love you,' that sort of thing, but you knew he did. But at that moment when I looked up, it seemed like I was staring at him for 15-20 minutes. In actuality, when you see the video, it was probably a few seconds, but it feels like 1,000 words were flying back and forth between him and I. So that was a special thing."

The laughs come easily to Ripken when he moves past the sentimental.

"The funny part of it when I went out to right field and the guy reached down and tried to shake my hand and fell, when you're standing down on the field on the warning track and he's way up, you think he's falling to your level, right?" Ripken said. "But the area behind the fence out there, the ground level is almost halfway up, and so all of a sudden, he popped up really quick and was standing there at the fence now waist high and he was OK. He didn't fall that far, and I started laughing as I was running around. But I was concerned for his safety there for a minute.

"It is funny from my perspective. People tell you all the time that they were at that game - 2,130 and 2,131 - and it seems like there was a heck of a lot more than 40,000 people who tell you that. So you wonder where they were sitting and what they were doing."

The lap is one of the most indelible moments of the record-setting night. Rafael Palmeiro and Bobby Bonilla coaxing Ripken out of the dugout after the game became official. The shove in the back to get him started. Whitney Houston's song, "One Moment in Time," blaring over the sound system, a feature that wasn't planned because no one knew Ripken would circle the field.

"There was a point in time during the lap where I started to think, 'OK, I don't care if this game happens at all again. If we don't play the rest of it, I'm fine,'" Ripken said. "But all the way up to that point, I was thinking, 'I'll celebrate with you as much as you want after, but we've got to get the game going.' It's like an unintended rain delay or something. The pitcher's cooling down, the players are cooling down, it was a hot night.

"I remember Raffy was the first to say in the dugout, 'Look, you've got to take a lap around this ballpark or we're not going to get started.' And I dismissed it totally, thinking that's not going to happen. I'm not doing that. And then Bobby Bo, in his big ol' voice, kind of took control of that. And then Jeffrey Hammonds, and I didn't realize that but now I remember watching the video, that Jeffrey Hammonds was close by and there was sort of a little bit of a consensus that developed that I needed to take a lap.

"Once I was physically pushed down the line, I thought 'OK, let's go.' And then I started to take the lap at first as an obligation to see if it was going to work, and then after I got into it really quickly it was a wonderful personal celebration and immediately I thought, 'OK, I don't care how long this goes. Baseball game, it's official, so it is what it is.' I opened up and I started to enjoy the lap and I started to enjoy the whole moment.

"I was a little embarrassed for the first part of it. How many times can you come out and say, 'Thank you?' You want to say, 'Thank you, let's play baseball again.' But the lap around, no one could have choreographed that to happen any better than it did. Nobody could come up with the idea. And the big numbers on the warehouse was a fantastic idea. I'm sure that has happened in other areas where they count up to 3,000 hits and all that stuff. I've seen some things. But that idea and starting to condition the fans before that, when the games became official ... I never looked at it that way, either. Play the music, drop the banner, that all played into the specialness of the moment. But the lap was totally spontaneous and it turned out to be one of the best human moments that anyone could have."

The Orioles wanted to honor Ripken on Sept. 6, with the first 25,000 fans 15 and older receiving a bobblehead, but ballparks are empty due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ripken, the organization and Major League Baseball are discussing creative ways to do it remotely.

The celebration will be done virtually and in a momentous way with digital in-game MASN and community components. Any method possible to bring the experience to fans who are kept at home.

"I was looking forward to the celebration in many ways because it is a good look back and you have the opportunity to reflect," Ripken said. "The Orioles were excited about it, but because of COVID, we're all scrambling around to figure out how to deal with it. I'm happy to celebrate it any way we can because it does promote a good memory and was a good time in baseball.

"Baseball can always count on its history to remind everybody how great the game is, so I was looking forward to that."

Ripken has an unexpected reason to celebrate his life in the middle of a pandemic.

"It's a strange time, isn't it?" he asked.

"COVID has challenged us in many different ways in our daily lives - what we do, how we do it. As a baseball player, I of course would want to play and try to use the precautions and take a chance and try to figure out how you can do it."

This is the point in the conversation when Ripken's voice cracks with emotion as he reveals his prostate cancer diagnosis in February and the successful surgery a month later.

"The story's good, it has a great outcome," he said.

The cancer hadn't spread outside the prostate, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital removed it and Ripken returned to his normal routine.

"Everything is great," he said.

"I kind of toyed with the idea of not telling anybody ever about that because it feels like it was a personal issue, but as time has gone on, it's a very happy ending. It proves that if you get the diagnosis early the outcome is fantastic.

"All the different post-analysis and all that kind of stuff says the cancer was all contained in the prostate, so I'm cancer-free and you can resume your normal life. I thank my lucky stars that that occurred. But what's interesting is as we're all dealing with different challenges, that's a moment in your life you don't want to hear. We all know people who have had different cancers, and you kind of wonder how you would feel if it happened to you. I know what that feels like now."

Outfielder Trey Mancini's colon cancer was discovered this spring during the annual physical in Sarasota. Otherwise, he might not have known until it moved beyond Stage 3.

Ripken is hoping to speak with Mancini later in the year, now that he's made the news public. A shared experience.

"As baseball players, all the medical is provided for you," Ripken said. "You get physicals, you just do what your told and you're healthy and everything's fine. But when you retire that responsibility falls on you to get a test, your regular physicals. And sometimes, we as guys avoid that or think we'll just go to the doctor when we need to.

"So I thought that maybe my story, as lucky and as great as it is, a happy ending, could encourage and maybe bring the awareness that you should get checked, you should go to the doctors and you should do all the things necessary so you can catch something like this early. Because when you do, you have a lot of options and it's a good outcome."

Ripken told his brother Billy on the night of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation's "Aspire Gala" on March 2 in Baltimore.

"It seems like a very festive thing to spread to me at the gala, doesn't it," Billy said, applying his usual humorous touch.

"Everything was going along and he says, 'Hey, have you got a minute?' And I'm like, 'Uh oh.' We're not a, 'Hey, you got a minute?' type family. He pulled me aside after the gala was kind of over and we were still in the main room down there at the Marriott and he (gives me) pretty much the news that he has prostate cancer. He was like looking at me, and you don't see those kinds of looks out of Junior very often. I certainly wasn't expecting that kind of news.

"First thing you think of is, OK, it's deep, it's going on a little bit. But he said, 'I got it early, everything seems to be controlled.' Speaking like typical Junior. 'And I'm probably going to get surgery next week,' or whatever he said. He goes, 'I think everything's going to be fine.' And then him being him, he looked at me and goes, 'I need you to get checked.' Even though I said, 'I just got checked, like, two months ago and I'm kind of good, feel good.' 'Well, you better get checked again.' I'm like, 'OK, settle down, fella.'

"It's kind of him the way he is. Once he enters that world, he wants to make sure that maybe nobody else has to deal with something like that if you don't have to."

Ripken's meticulous nature showed again as he waited to make the news public.

"I think what he does is he thinks about things," Billy said. "He goes through something, everything's good and he goes, 'You know, this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to get out there because it might help somebody else.' Very private, yes. We all are in the family, I believe, but he's also very thoughtful. And what I mean by that is he thinks about things a lot of different ways.

"I didn't really get involved very much during this process because I knew when he was getting surgery, I knew when he came out of surgery, I knew things in surgery went well and I'm good. And I think if he wanted me or needed me, he would have reached out to me. It's just kind of that way. But I'm a little surprised just because of the privacy, but I'm not after that when you think about it and why he did it. Probably makes all the sense in the world."

Billy sensed that his brother was calm leading up to the surgery, knowing that the cancer was detected in its early stages and was contained.

"I don't think there was any reason for him to feel any other way," Billy said. "Now that's not to say when he was by himself and sitting around and everything else that something might have been creeping in. I think he trusted the fact that everything was OK because that's what he was told as far as the procedure, and they felt pretty confident that everything was going to be fine."

The younger brother tried to keep his own emotions in check.

"He didn't give me any sense that I needed to be upset or concerned. He really didn't," Billy said. "The only thing that upset me was he kept telling me to go get checked when I said I've been checked. So it's just kind of the way we operate.

"I don't think we're necessarily knee-jerk alarmists. I was probably the most knee-jerk alarmed and made a facial expression and looked concerned when he told me that he had it. And then 10 minutes after that, just talking about it and everything else, I think the majority of the 10 minutes might have been seven minutes directed at me and make sure I get checked out. So it kind of shifts.

"My first knee-jerk reaction when you hear that word, it is a terrible word to hear, and then I just kind of chilled out."