Cal Ripken, Jr. Quotes

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Cal Ripken, Jr.

Profession : Athlete

Birth : August 24, 1960

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.

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 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 see myself as extremely lucky.

Cal Ripken, Jr.

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.

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'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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.