Cal Ripken Sr.

The Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League is named in honor of Cal Ripken Senior. The father of Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. instilled fundamentals to generations of Orioles one day at a time.

By Jim Henneman

He helped raise two major leaguers at home, hundreds more down on the farm – and some of them grew up to be Hall of Famers. But to Cal Ripken, Sr., they all looked the same in a uniform.At one point or another, a coach in the big leagues could be called on to not only be an instructor, but a mentor, confidant, supporter, critic, big brother or maybe even a dispenser of tough love as a father figure. Over the course of his career, Ripken touched all of those bases.

When he became manager of the Baltimore Orioles in 1987, with Cal, Jr. and Bill on the team, perhaps only those who had followed his path could believe Ripken’s response when asked what it was like to manage his two boys. “They’re all my boys,” was his response every time the subject came up. “I have 25 boys out there and they're all the same to me.”

Long before he became the only big league manager to have two sons play on the same team, Ripken had played, coached and managed at every level of the Orioles’ organization. He knew what it took to climb every step of the minor league ladder. “His message was that there were no shortcuts,” said Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. “And everybody really was the same to him, whether you were a ‘bonus baby’ or one of the backups: You got the same treatment.”

Ripken was Palmer’s first professional manager, in Aberdeen, S.D., in 1964. He was 18 years old and the vivid impressions never faded over the years. “There was no ‘Oriole Way’ back then, it was just the ‘right way.’ And that’s how we did things.”

Ripken is famously known for saying “practice doesn’t make perfect...perfect practice makes perfect,” and it was more than just a clever quote. “He was all about perfect practice,” said Palmer, the memory still fresh years later.

Ripken’s career started in 1957, when he was the first player signed by Walter Youse, a legendary scout in the Baltimore area who had a pretty good idea of what he was getting. “I don’t know if he can catch in the big leagues,” Youse said at the time, “but he’ll be great for the organization.”

All things considered, a very astute observation.

Eddie Murray only played two games on a minor league team managed by Ripken, but the two developed something akin to a father-son relationship in the years spent together in Spring Training, the instructional league and later in the big leagues.

“When I first came to the Orioles, they had a book for every position for where every player should be for every play,” Murray said. I knew how to play the game because I had a coach, Clifford Prelow, who stressed the same things, and Rip reminded me of him.”

That the two hit it off and had forged a solid relationship came to light before either made it to the big leagues. “Somewhere along the line he stood up for me,” said Murray. “I had a habit of standing with my arms folded and some people thought it was a sign that I was lazy and Rip said ‘talk to me the next time he’s out of position and then I’ll listen to you.’

“‘Old man Rip’ was really, really something special,” Murray said. “I can still see him with the tractor light on (working on the infield) and guys laughing. I said: ‘You don’t understand, this man loves the game – you just don’t realize it.’” Murray is only one of many who recount stories of Ripken, the minor league camp coordinator, driving a tractor. When it came to manicuring the infield, ‘no stone goes unturned’ was part of Ripken’s theory that ‘perfect practice makes perfect.’

Murray and Cal, Sr. formed their relationship during those years but it was cemented during Eddie’s rookie year. “Cal, Jr. started coming around and when Senior introduced us he told him ‘this is your brother.’” That was the year before Cal, Jr. was drafted and four years before his major league debut – and the beginning of another Ripken connection, a journey that would ultimately take both to Cooperstown.

Cal, Jr. and Bill didn’t get to spend on field time with their dad until all three were in the big leagues, but evidence suggests the minor league experiences others received were pretty much an extension of life at home. Together they now run the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, establishing a legacy of the principles he believed in and passed on to others. Those who didn’t wear uniforms got the same treatment as those who did.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” Cal, Jr. repeated a favorite saying while noting his father’s precision for something as basic as mowing the lawn. “He taught how to mow straight lines and cut sharp edges.” A lesson no doubt straight out of the Cal, Sr. handbook which said: “What you do today is practice for how you will live tomorrow.”

That’s the same message, in different words, Palmer heard in Aberdeen, S.D. so many years ago: “Let’s go out and try to be a little better today than we were yesterday.” It wasn’t just a spoken line – it was a way of life. Perhaps it was Bill who best explained Cal Sr.’s mission: “Dad was a teacher first and foremost. He had a spot for kids and he had a spot for teaching.”

As a baseball “lifer,” Cal Ripken Sr. was a “coach” in every sense of the term. Instructor, mentor, supporter, critic, big brother and father – he played every role.

The legacy now is the mission for the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, striving to cover all bases and “guide at-risk youth toward a healthier future.”

One day at a time.

Jim Henneman, formerly of the Baltimore Sun, has covered the Orioles as a beat writer and columnist for parts of seven decades.

Reprinted with permission from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

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