Report; Cal Ripken Jr. Is Honored at DCA
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Gary Miller
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Now, when baseball people talk about players and their statistics they talk about them as clubs that players join. The 3,000 hit club, the 400 home run club. Cal happens to be a member of an extremely more exclusive club, the 3,400 club. How exclusive? Well out of thousands and thousands of players who have played the game of baseball only six other people, other than Cal, are in the 3,400 club. To give you an idea of the elite company Cal Ripken is in, the others guys in that club - somebody named (Hank) Aaron, (Willie) Mays, his old teammate Eddie Murray, (Stan) Musial, Yaz (Carl Yastrzemski), and one of this year’s inductees into the Hall of Fame, Dave Winfield.

And if all those records aren’t enough to get him a direct pass into the Baseball Hall of Fame - and they are - there’s the thing that sets him apart from everyone that ever played the game, and that’s this streak. On May 30, 1982 - some of us weren’t even born back then - Cal took the field. The streak began. He wouldn’t miss a game until September 19, 1998. The streak lasted 17 seasons shattering the one record in baseball that the experts thought would stand forever. Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. Now, if someone played every game starting next year they wouldn’t break the record until 2019. To give you a little more perspective, only one player this season has played every inning of every game. Cal did it for 17 years. The night Cal broke the record was magical. It will go down as one of the great moments in all of sports. I don’t think anyone who saw that game watched it without a serious case of the chills on a sweltering September night in Baltimore. And that Cal set another record which will most likely never be broken - most handshakes, attaboys, backslaps... It’s still going on, and we’re going to give him a big one here today.

So that’s the career. Now let’s meet the man. Ladies and gentleman, as he comes in on our Orange County orange convertible, coming your way accompanied by his wife Kelly, his daughter Rachel, his son Ryan, member of Cal Ripken Baseball who are accompanying him along the parade route and, of course, some of our gang - Mickey, Minnie and crew. It gives me great pleasure to introduce one of baseball all time greats. Here he comes - Cal Ripken Jr.

Cal makes his way to the stage
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Cal and family
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RealVideo: Cal and his family entering the convertible (2 minutes, 11 seconds)
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