Gehrig

This "roar of the crowd" stuff is vastly overrated.This weekend, Major League Baseball named a 30-member All-Century team as voted on by fans and a panel of experts. After studying the results, all we can say is: Aah, what do they know?You see, The Sun asked its own distinguished group of voters -- columnist George F. Will, broadcaster Bob Costas, Hall of Fame announcer Ernie Harwell, sportswriters Dave Kindred and Christine Brennan and Sun publisher and long-time fan Michael E. Waller -- for their selections.

Let it happen today. Let it happen at home. Let Cal Ripken hit his 400th homer in the same place he broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games record.Let it happen here.The home run would mark the fourth major historic event in the eight-year history of Camden Yards, after Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game, Eddie Murray's 500th homer and Ripken ending his streak.It was impossible to imagine Ripken breaking Gehrig's record on the road. It was fitting that Murray hit his 500th homer in the city where he began his career.

Quote: "When people constantly put my name up against all these Hall of Famers, it's quite awesome to think I've passed them." -- Mark McGwire, whose 494th homer moved him past Lou Gehrig to 16th place all-timeIt's a fact: The Giants won for just the fourth time in 29 games in which they have scored four runs or fewer.Who's hot: The Braves' Andruw Jones has 10 hits in his past 24 at-bats with three homers.Who's not: The Expos' Dustin Hermanson hasn't won in 14 starts since May 8.On deck: Mets right-hander Bobby Jones pitched two innings of a simulated game and is closer to beginning a rehab assignment.

Cal Ripken Jr.'s 400th home run could happen tonight, or tomorrow night, but whenever he airmails the homer into the stands, the fan who ends up with the ball will have more than just a piece of history.The fan will have an ethical dilemma.Do you 1. give it to Ripken or the Orioles in exchange for a few trinkets -- the right thing to do in some circles? -- or do you, 2. catch the next Metroliner to a New York City auction house and start yelling, "Show me the money!" -- a gesture more in keeping with these big buck, merger and acquisition, millionaires-by-the-bucketful days?

PHILADELPHIA -- He's going to the All-Star Game with a .313 batting average, his highest since his MVP season in 1991. He's 50 hits shy of 3,000 and four homers shy of 400, and projects to reach both milestones by the end of the season.Cal Ripken always will be defined by numbers -- 2,632 foremost, his final hit and home run totals, his record three errors at shortstop in 1990. But his latest resurgence is the topper in a decade of such feats, the greatest example yet of his indomitable will to succeed.

WASHINGTON -- Wilson Krahnke, 60, of Bethesda, a businessman all his life, trod down First Street in the nation's capital in dark suit and starched shirt. Under his arm he carried the day's Wall Street Journal.The last time he visited the Hart Senate Office Building, he did so to inspect the accounting and financial systems there underpinning his company's food service contract. If political things were going on, he ignored them -- that was his wife's bailiwick.Personally, though Krahnke always volunteered for church and civic groups, he found politics abominable.

No one investigates Starr but Starr?The Talking Head community has realigned from its old liberal-conservative construct into the Linda Tripp Party vs. the Monica Lewinsky Party to prepare for the next election.Speeding trains could put Baltimore on the map. Even Philadelphia.OK, so Cal broke Gehrig's record. When will someone beat DiMag's?Pub Date: 3/10/99

Michael Zaslow, 54, an Emmy-winning soap opera star who portrayed a man with Lou Gehrig's disease on "One Life to Live" after being stricken with the illness in real life, died Sunday from the disease at his home in New York City.Pub Date: 12/09/98

Mark down the number -- 2,632. No one will ever play that many consecutive games again. No one will even try.Lou Gehrig's monument at Yankee Stadium says his "amazing record of 2,130 consecutive games should stand for all time."Cal Ripken reduced forever to 56 years. And he turned 16 1/2 years into forever.The Streak began as a simple reflection of Ripken's desire to play and help the Orioles win.It evolved into a saving grace for his sport and an object lesson for his country.Ultimately, it grew bigger than the man, bigger than his team, bigger than his sport -- so big that no one knew how to make it end.Ripken, 38, finally found a way last night, bringing The Streak to a proper and graceful conclusion by sitting out the Orioles' final home game of 1998.

It was grueling.Everybody knows that.Cal Ripken played with sprained ankles and twisted knees and bruised ribs. He played with head colds and flu symptoms. He played on even after Lou Gehrig handed over his record and Davey Johnson took away his primary position. He played on and on and on, until there was only one question left.Was it all worth it?There is no precise date, but The Streak took on a life of its own sometime in the early 1990s, probably when Ripken passed Boston Red Sox great Everett Scott to move into second place on baseball's all-time iron man list.