SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
July 26, 2007
They were entirely different men who played in entirely different leagues their entire careers. But each played the game over the same two decades, and each played it with the same traits: workmanlike dedication to duty. Master-craftsmanship. Supreme confidence in his abilities.
And fearlessness. Total, unshakable, never-blinking fearlessness.
Until now.
“Terrifying” was the word that first came to Cal Ripken's mind when asked recently about the task at hand, the induction of him and Tony Gwynn into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Sunday. Just to keep from losing it emotionally Sunday, Gwynn said, he may finally have to take his eye off the ball and gaze out at the trees or the sky above the mountains.
If it were just another speech they were making to, say, the Cooperstown Kiwanis, either man could step up to the podium the way he stepped up to the plate and let the words flow. Talking, even speechifying, has never come tough to Gwynn or Ripken.
Heck, in all of baseball history, there's not been a more obliging or informative interview subject than Gwynn. Having dispensed at least as many great quotes and analyses as base hits, he should also be inducted into the Hall of Fame's writers wing, for which he'd surely be voted in gratefully and unanimously by scribes.
Induction into Cooperstown is not only the culmination and crowning glory of a ballplayer's career, but in many ways the most difficult thing he has ever had to do with regards to his game and profession. Like getting your first major league at-bat in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series.
“It finally seems very real now,” Ripken said a few days back. “If you're looking at the stages of the (process): No. 1 is the call (that came Jan. 9). No. 2 are all the congratulations you get for six months. Three is the homestretch . . . absolute terror.”
Gwynn and Ripken will be the focal point of festivities that begin tomorrow in the mountain hamlet whose very name evokes the stuff of legends. This time, when the greats of the game return to Cooperstown for the traditional reunion photograph, they will have come to celebrate a self-proclaimed “judy,” a left-handed “grinder” who was perhaps the greatest pure hitter ever. Also a shortstop who not only redefined the position with his size and power, but also went to extraordinary lengths to personify the fellow who “comes to play every day.”
“To me, it's instant respect,” Gwynn said. “Hall of Fame status to me means you were successful and did things the right way. I remember playing the Angels sometime back in the '90s. Frank Robinson was doing the game for Fox. Some young guy asked me, 'Who's that?' I had to school him right then and there. I said, 'That's 586 homers right there, the only man to ever be MVP of both leagues.' He said, 'OK, OK.'
“Every time I ever came across a Hall of Famer, I was like, 'Hello, Mr. Robinson. Hello, Mr. Feller. Hello, Mr. Williams. Hello, Mr. Carew. Hello, Mr. Palmer. Hello, Mr. Weaver.' Those are the people who paved the way. Those men are the royalty of the game and should be treated as such.”
Gwynn chuckled that chuckle.
“Now,” he added, “once I become one, it reverts.”
That is, once he's been admitted to the pantheon of players, Gwynn still may have a hard time getting used to being called “Mister.” He'll have to grow accustomed to it, though, because they just erected a statue of him at Petco Park that identifies the man swinging the bronze bat as “Mr. Padre.”
Ozzie Smith and Dave Winfield are Padres products who already have been enshrined – with the latter actually wearing the San Diego cap on his plaque despite making more of a name for himself with the New York Yankees. But Gwynn is the first Hall of Fame entry to have played every game of his professional career as a representative of a Padres franchise born in 1969.
Consequently, the hills of eastern New York will be overrun by folks wearing various shades of Padres garb past and present. Brown. Blue. Orange. Gold. Tan, er, “sand.”
“Seems like everybody I've run into says they'll be in Cooperstown,” Gwynn said. “If they're expecting 70,000 in Cooperstown, I'd say 20,000 will be from San Diego.”
Naturally, there'll also be lots and lots of black and orange in what's expected to be a record number of out-of-towners in Cooperstown this weekend, much owing to Ripken's appeal back east as the everyman, every-day type of player he was. Ripken said he has heard that whereas six or seven busloads of people might normally make the trip, no fewer than 200 buses have been chartered by Baltimore Orioles fans.
All will be making the trek, above all, to hear every word spoken by Ripken and Gwynn.
“When people place you on a high pedestal, you get uncomfortable,” Ripken said. “It doesn't terrify me to be up there and deliver a message. To be the focus of something so big, though, sure gets you a bit anxious. It's an emotional roller-coaster, expressing private thoughts in a very public event.”
He's thankful not to be alone in the process. Relative strangers who mostly had to admire each other from afar for so long, Gwynn and Ripken have forged a bond that should help get them through the fuss and festivity.
“We've been going at it for 6½ months,” Gwynn said. “From announcement day to this, it's a huge deal. But I don't think the magnitude really hits you until you're there.”
He's almost there.
Chris Jenkins: (619) 293-1267; chris.jenkins@uniontrib.com
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