Cal Ripken, Jr. Quotes

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“My dad had premature gray. I was always the one with the most energy, the one who continued to practice longer. I ran up and down the stairs of different stadiums. I didn't feel the need to cover up the fact that I was losing my hair or it was graying. When you're on a team, age is only a factor when you're talking in the locker room.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

I never set out to do this; I never set out to say, 'Can I break this record?' Then all of a sudden, the preparations made for the celebration put pressure on me. I said, 'Okay, I have to get there.' After 2,130, there was sort of a realization it was a foregone conclusion you're going to play tomorrow.

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“I don't mind being described as vanilla in certain ways.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event, and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“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.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“I see myself as extremely lucky.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“If you do a job, do it right or there is no point.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“We consider ourselves the luckiest fans on the face of the Earth.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

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

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

“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.

“I haven't given it (achieving 3,000 hits) much thought. I was taught a certain approach, how to come to the ballpark. I try not to do too much thinking about things like that. In this society we measure success in different ways. Three thousand (hits) represents success over a career, not a season. It'll be nice to get to that point.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.

“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.

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.

“Early in my career, I decided I never wanted to get out of shape.”

— Cal Ripken, Jr.