Cal Ripken

Alabama football coach Nick Saban was at Gilman Wednesday night to take in the Greyhounds' basketball victory over Calvert Hall . Saban, of course, is in the process of wooing Gilman football/basketball standout Cyrus Jones to join the Crimson Tide. The All-Metro Offensive Football Player of the Year is also considering Ohio State (who had assistant Luke Fickell at the game), Auburn, Virginia Tech and Maryland. But that wasn't the only star power at Gilman, as Cal Ripken Jr. and his wife Kelly were there to cheer on their son, Ryan, who also plays for the Greyhounds.

There's the Hall of Fame plaque, the World Series ring and the hardware he won for Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player (twice) and countless other accomplishments. Sometimes, Cal Ripken Jr. looks at that stuff and wonders: Is it really mine? "The farther removed [from playing] that I get, the more it all seems like another lifetime. But I'm pretty sure it all happened to me," said Ripken, 51, who spent 21 seasons with the Orioles before retiring in 2001. "When you're not playing baseball, day to day, in many ways your career is like looking back on a dream.

It was a victory lap for the ages. Rafael Palmeiro and Bobby Bonilla pushed Cal Ripken out of the Orioles' dugout, and off the game's all-time Iron Man went. Down the right-field line, shaking hands with fans in the front row. Into the outfield, greeting the grounds crew and police officers. Above the center-field wall, where fans tumbled out of the bleachers as he leaped to slap them five. Ripken's mother, Vi, leaned against his father, Cal Sr. Earlier, Senior had clapped and waved from his luxury box. Now he stood in his suit, hands behind his back, this incredibly tough man, biting his lower lip to fight back tears.

The date - Sept. 6, 1995 - had been circled on calendars, not just in Baltimore, but throughout the country. The countdown for the Orioles' Cal Ripken Jr. to break Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games record had gone on for months. And yet, if I had any idea of what was about to occur - the moment that would overcome the ballpark, the emotion that would transfix the nation, the hundreds of thousands of newspapers and mementos that The Sun would sell - I would have been even more nervous than I was walking into 501 N. Calvert St. that afternoon.

The Orioles don't play until tonight, but I figured I'd give you something baseball-related to read today. Bert Sugar, best known as a boxing historian, died Sunday from cardiac arrest. He was 75. Sugar is remembered for wearing his fedora, chomping on his cigar and churning out story after wonderful story about boxing. But Sugar was a baseball historian as well. He had a great perspective on the game. In 2005, I was charged with writing a piece about the 10th anniversary of Cal Ripken Jr. setting baseball's Iron Man record . My fantastic and ambitious sports editor at the time, Randy Harvey, challenged me to write a wide-sweeping article with historical perspective, something I'm not sure I had done before.

Baltimore baseball legend and former Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. is teaming with Long Valley, N.J.-based Florio Sports LLC to sell a beef jerky snack, the sports firm announced Wednesday. The jerky, called Ripken Power Shred, is available only online at http://www.chewjerky.com until spring of 2011 when the product will be available in retail outlets. The snack, which is made from "lean American beef," according to a news release, will debut at the National Association of Convenience Stores trade show in Atlanta from Tuesday through Friday.

Cal Ripken Jr. , baseball's Mr. Clean, aired a little dirty laundry on a radio quiz show. Appearing on NPR's "Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me!" last weekend, Ripken was asked about the infamous 1989 baseball card bearing the image of teammate-brother Billy Ripken holding a bat with an obscenity scrawled on the end. The Ironman went on to reveal that Billy isn't the only Ripken who knows how to curse. Peter Sagal , host of the show, asked Ripken if he ever gets tired of living up to his good-boy image.

Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. announced a nationwide education challenge Tuesday that is geared toward helping students knock their math skills out of the park. Through his organization, Ripken Baseball, the Baltimore "Iron Man" launched a Grand Slam Math Challenge, which will ask students in grades kindergarten through 12 in every state to play the online and board game TiViTz to improve their math skills. Ripken said Tuesday that he was inspired to launch the challenge — which uses math skills on a video baseball field — by the youths in his Ripken Baseball program.

There's the Hall of Fame plaque, the World Series ring and the hardware he won for Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player (twice) and countless other accomplishments. Sometimes, Cal Ripken Jr. looks at that stuff and wonders: Is it really mine? "The farther removed [from playing] that I get, the more it all seems like another lifetime. But I'm pretty sure it all happened to me," said Ripken, 51, who spent 21 seasons with the Orioles before retiring in 2001. "When you're not playing baseball, day to day, in many ways your career is like looking back on a dream.

It's hard to believe, but the fresh-faced kid who burst into the Orioles lineup in 1982, caught the final out of the World Series in 1983 and broke Lou Gehrig's supposedly unbreakable consecutive games record in 1995 has reached the half-century mark. Cal Ripken Jr. turns 50 on Tuesday, so we thought it was a perfect time to sit down with him and talk about his great career, his reaction to the Big 5-0 and his plans for the future. This is the first in an occasional series of one-on-one interviews conducted by Peter Schmuck with some of Maryland's most talked-about sports figures.

The Orioles don't play until tonight, but I figured I'd give you something baseball-related to read today. Bert Sugar, best known as a boxing historian, died Sunday from cardiac arrest. He was 75. Sugar is remembered for wearing his fedora, chomping on his cigar and churning out story after wonderful story about boxing. But Sugar was a baseball historian as well. He had a great perspective on the game. In 2005, I was charged with writing a piece about the 10th anniversary of Cal Ripken Jr. setting baseball's Iron Man record . My fantastic and ambitious sports editor at the time, Randy Harvey, challenged me to write a wide-sweeping article with historical perspective, something I'm not sure I had done before.

Cal Ripken, the former Baltimore Orioles star known best for setting the major league record for consecutive games, is spending some of his free time these days as an author. In this Baltimore Sun video, Cal and co-author Kevin Cowherd talk about " Super-sized Slugger," about a pudgy kid who gets pushed around while trying to earn a spot on a baseball team. Cal says he wanted to address the issue of bullying, and give kids a way to deal with it. Here's the description on Amazon: Cody Parker is the new kid in school.

Cal Ripken Jr.will not come to your kid's school and help him polish off a bully. What exactly do you want for $16.99? But with his latest children's book, the Hall of Famer hopes he can arm your kids, informationally, with what they need to handle bullies and some of the other down sides of growing up. "Bullying is huge," Ripken told The Sun Monday evening. "Parents think it's just a phase, or life, or part of toughening up, but I want kids to know, 'You have options and the options are caring adults.'" Released Tuesday, "Super-sized Slugger,” written with The Sun's Kevin Cowherd, is the Hall of Famer's second children's novel.

When looking back at last year's Orioles , the one thing that stuck out to Cal Ripken, Jr. was that their pitching was ranked last in the majors. Before the former Orioles great held the eighth annual Cal Ripken Sr. Aspire Gala on Friday night at the Marriott Waterside in downtown Baltimore, he sat with one of his honorees, Yankees slugging first baseman Mark Teixeira, and talked about the importance of having quality arms. Two of the game's greatest hitters of their respective generations, lodged in a conversation about pitching.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban was at Gilman Wednesday night to take in the Greyhounds' basketball victory over Calvert Hall . Saban, of course, is in the process of wooing Gilman football/basketball standout Cyrus Jones to join the Crimson Tide. The All-Metro Offensive Football Player of the Year is also considering Ohio State (who had assistant Luke Fickell at the game), Auburn, Virginia Tech and Maryland. But that wasn't the only star power at Gilman, as Cal Ripken Jr. and his wife Kelly were there to cheer on their son, Ryan, who also plays for the Greyhounds.

Cal Ripken Jr. is on a U.S. State Department visit to the earthquake-damaged parts of Japan.  We will post his videos from the trip here.  You can get more information on the trip on Cal's blog.                    

The Marriott Waterfront mezzanine was a mob scene. About 800 folks filled the floor for the cocktail hour of the fifth annual Aspire Gala benefiting the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. "It warms my heart that, in an economy like this, we still sell out," said foundation executive director Steve Salem. "That's not an easy thing to do." Among the guests were almost 50 current and former pro baseball players and coaches, including the evening's honorees, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer and former University of Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz.

Ryan Ripken was the center of attention Monday morning as four Gilman seniors signed Letters of Intent with four Division I programs. "It was a very tough decision for me," said Ripken, the 6-foot-6, 200 pound son of Orioles Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripken. "There was no pressure from my dad or my family, but I found I felt very comfortable there when I visited. I feel South Carolina will give me every opportunity to develop as a player and as a person. "I wanted to step out of the box. It will be a challenge on the baseball side and from the school size.

It was a strange sight at Camden Yards before Friday night's game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, as No. 8 was out on the field in a white Orioles jersey, taking cuts in the batting cage and playing catch with shortstop J.J. Hardy. No, it wasn't Cal Ripken Jr., the No. 8 who redefined the shortstop position while playing in 2,632 straight games for the Orioles. It was Alex Ovechkin, the dynamic Washington Capitals left winger who has scored 301 goals in six seasons and twice been named the NHL's most valuable player.