Jon Miller came to Baltimore as the team’s principal broadcaster in 1983, and Cal Ripken Jr.’s streak was already underway, though no one talked about it.
Miller, who left the Orioles after the 1996 season, has called San Francisco Giants games since 1997. He will participate in Saturday’s ceremonies honoring the 30th anniversary of Ripken surpassing Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak.
“I got to Baltimore in 1983, and Cal played every inning of every game for the first five years I was broadcasting the games, much less every game,” Miller said over the weekend at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.
“The streak had already started at that time, and nobody even realized it at that time, because the streak was what, [117] games by the time the ’83 season started.”
Ripken’s consecutive innings streak lasted from May 29th, 1982-September 14th, 1987 when his father, Cal Sr., removed him in the eighth inning of a game in Toronto when the Orioles allowed 10 home runs.
Miller says the streak’s importance was impressed upon him by longtime teammate Eddie Murray.
“‘When you hit, third, fourth in the lineup, it’s so important that you’re ready to play every day,” Murray told Ripken. “If you miss a game, just one game, it’s a letdown to the whole clubhouse and the entire clubhouse, so Eddie was a guy who took those words very seriously himself, and that was an example he set, but I don’t think anybody’s ever taken anybody’s advice more to heart than Cal, who took Eddie’s advice of playing every day and the importance of that.
“Eddie told him, ‘You have to get your sleep. You have to eat well. You have to stay in shape to be able to play every day. In ’84, both of them played the whole season, one right after the other, and they hit one right after the other in the batting order. Still a great 1-2 punch, even though the whole team went into a slump except those two guys.”
Miller remembers how big September 6th, 1995 was to the sports world. ESPN televised the game, and it received the highest rating of any baseball game it ever showed, even though both the Orioles and the Angels both televised it locally.
“I think what resonated was that was what people have to do every day, be ready to go to work. It was sort of a workingman’s kind of record,” Miller believes.
“He stayed in shape. He stayed healthy, and he was available every day to help his team try to win ballgames, so I guess everybody could kind of identify with that in their personal lives and it was also the next year after the big strike which had a debilitating effect on the whole sport.
“A lot of people said: ‘Man, I’ve had it with these guys, these overpaid ballplayers and these billionaire owners fighting about money. I’ve seen my last game.’
“It was a key factor in people falling in love with the game again. Part of the thing that resonated was, that’s part of the thing that they loved about the game, things like that. The thing that was so big about Cal playing every game for all those years, day after day was that Lou Gehrig had that record, one of the storied superstars in major league history.”
Miller remembers Ripken being chided by a good friend, the Minnesota Twins’ Hall of Fame outfielder Kirby Puckett about his streak
“Kirby hits a double. He’s at second and Cal’s over there covering, throws the ball back to the pitcher,” Miller recalls.
Kirby says, “Hey, Cal, you look tired.’
“He says, ‘Well, we got in at 3 in the morning from Anaheim, and I’m really dragging tonight,’ and Kirby laughed: ‘Look at it this way, Cal, just another five years and you can take a day off.’
“So Kirby was getting on his case and having a laugh with it, and it made Cal laugh. He wasn’t even that close to the streak. We didn’t know if he was going to make that or not. Five years, that’s still another 800 games. Cal was at 1,300 or 1,400 games, whatever year that was.”
As Ripken approached 2,130, Orioles executive Charles Steinberg had a terrific idea. He’d have a banner unfurled from The Warehouse with the number of games Ripken played consecutively once the game became official.
“I didn’t even get that when he started doing that the previous homestand. He started doing that before they went on a road trip, and it seemed kind of hokey to me,” Miller said.
“Cal didn’t seem to like it at all that they’re showing him on camera, and he’s kind of rolling his eyes. Then when we come back, and he ties the record one night and breaks it the next night, then we saw the genius of it.
“That’s the moment he created. He created the moment of the record, and that’s when they celebrated and that’s when the ovation started and the fans had their impromptu celebration with Cal.
“Cal told the Orioles: ‘We’re not going to stop the game. I will not agree to that. This is not bigger than the game. We have to show respect for the game. After the game, you want to have some ceremony, let’s do it. I’ll be right there.
“Then the fans went ahead, unprompted, unscripted, and they staged their own celebration with Cal, just out of the blue, 48,000 people and Cal, and they celebrated for what was it, 20 minutes?”
Miller knew something that wasn’t widely known. Ripken wasn’t feeling anywhere close to his best for the big night.
“He wasn’t healthy,” Miller said. “He had a fever, and he’d been running a fever for a couple of days. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in several days. He was determined to get up with his kids, have breakfast with them, drive them to school and all that kind of stuff at the crack of dawn, and he did it that day with a 101 temperature, whatever he was running, which was an astounding little back story to that night.”
Ripken will reenact his trot around the stadium, only this time he’ll be driven around the warning track, and many players from his time will be back. Many of the fans in attendance have no memory of the time 30 years ago when Ripken, who’d play another 501 games in a row until he voluntarily took a seat on September 20th, 1998, set the record.
“It was the longest loud ovation, maybe in history, maybe the history of the world, certainly in sports,” Miller said.
“That was the most unforgettable part of that whole night. It was not scripted and totally impromptu, this love fest between Cal and all those Orioles fans. They said, ‘We’re celebrating now. Sorry, Cal.”
Note: Right-handed reliever Corbin Martin cleared outright waivers and accepted an assignment to Triple-A Norfolk.
Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: [email protected]
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