Ripken understands Williams' transition from hot corner to hot seat

The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation held a star-studded fundraiser called "Beltway Baseball" Friday night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C. Former Orioles great, Hall of Famer and foundation co-founder Cal Ripken Jr. brought along Nationals manager Matt Williams to speak to fans and help raise funds to help at-risk youth across the country. Williams said he was thrilled to be a part of the fundraiser. "When he calls, I say yes," Williams said. "The foundation is fantastic and they do great work. If I can come and be a part of it, I am happy to be a part of it." "He is the perfect candidate," Ripken said. "He is being humble. Good-hearted, good guy. It would be a really interesting event to pair us together and get two old, bald guys talking about baseball. We are really honored and thankful that Matt took us up on the invitation." Ripken said they have had success and good response from fans in D.C. for this event in the past. "We started this event with (Capitals star) Alex Ovechkin, which was pretty interesting when we got down in the market and found out that we had some traction," Ripken said. "We have done some work in the city with the Boys and Girls Clubs and put our programming in place. But now we are set to have at least two baseball fields built in the D.C. area. We have four or five done in the Baltimore area. We want to come down and help in the D.C. area. This is one of our events that we raise just for that specific purpose." Ripken said he watched and appreciated Williams' work in his first season as a big league manager. He learned from watching his dad, Cal Sr., work and how difficult the task of being a big league manager really is. Williams guided the Nationals to a 96-66 record, a National League East crown and a divisional playoff battle against the eventual World Series champion San Francisco Giants. "I am curious to talk about all the challenges he went through," Ripken said of Williams. "You can be a baseball player and watch other managers and you can be a coach if you want and try to manage along with the manager. But until you get in the hot seat, you don't know what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. "Cal Sr. was really great for being able to talk baseball and kind of give some of that experience in a developmental sense or in a big league manager sense. There are a few baseball guys like that that can help you a long the way. "Obviously, we have the manager of the year sitting next to us here," Ripken continued. "Whatever challenges that he saw, we didn't really see him from the outside looking in. But I'm sure he dealt with a few internal challenges and learned himself as a manager and probably learned that the game speeds up a whole lot more when you're in the hot seat than you did when you were out there getting ready for someone to pull a line drive down on the hot corner or thinking about what bunt play you were going to use. "It's a whole different mindset. I was really happy that he came in with a really great team and brought the team together and really brought the best out of them and positioned them really well to move up in the playoffs." Williams said he also appreciated Ripken and the work the foundation is doing to first help those in Baltimore and now help at-risk kids by building synthetic baseball fields in D.C. He understood from his playing days what it was like to go from an established team like the Indians to a brand-new team in the Diamondbacks. "I come from experience in that regard," Williams said. "At one point during my career, I went from a World Series team to an expansion team (Cleveland to Arizona). I understand that the challenges involved in creating a fan base. As we spoke about it, Baltimore has a long-standing fan base. "In relation to that, the Nationals are very young as a franchise. So we have a little bit of traction. We have fantastic organization and good players. I think (president of baseball operations) Mike Rizzo has done a great job of putting that all together and building the organization to where it is now. Now we want to try to create fans. Winning helps. But to be out in the community also helps. So part of our initiative as an organization is to get out (in the community). We can go play, win or lose, but if we can get out in the community and talk to folks and be a part of this (foundation), and hopefully gain some fans along the way." Ripken said a major key to the success of his foundation, and why Williams' help is so important, is that if it can get to at least one child and show them that they have others out there that care about them, and that there is more than one road to travel, they will have done their job as a charity. They want to build from those one-on-one contacts. "It's really interesting," Ripken said. "(If) you get an opportunity to see someone one-on-one or make an exposure to them, their tendency (is) to look in on you more. "It's the same concept we use with the kids in our foundation," Ripken continued. "If we can get out and we can give them an exposure to something good or give them a matchup with law enforcement or a caring adult that matters, then you change that sort of perspective and you draw them into the direction that you want to go. I think it's the same concept. It's an exposure and it's a human interaction that will result in interest in where you want them to go." Ripken's foundation has already impacted over two million kids across the country. Its next task is building these two new synthetic baseball fields in the D.C. area so the children have a safe place to play baseball or other sports on fields that will stand the test of time and won't be damaged by weather or changing of the seasons.