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CNN Live At Daybreak

Cal Ripken Jr. Discusses Retirement

Aired July 17, 2001 - 07:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LAURA OKMIN, CNN ANCHOR: He may not be playing every day, but fans are clamoring for tickets to see Cal Ripken Jr. one last time as the 40-year-old gets ready to call it a career. One of his farewell tour stops this weekend was CNN, where I got the chance to talk to baseball's Iron Man about where's he's been and where he's going.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKMIN: What is about you where so many of us are lucky if we get that fairy-tale moment once in our lifetime, and you seem just to get them all the time, between homering at the All-Star break and when you tied and when you broke Lou Gehrig's record. How do explain that? Is it fate? Is it timing? Is it luck?

CAL RIPKEN JR., PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE: In a lot of ways, I felt very lucky. I've been fortunate enough to do something I really wanted to do, stay with one team, do it for a long period of time, and along the way there have been some very special moments. I was lucky enough to be a part of the World Series world championship team early on in my career, and going on through the consecutive game stretch experience was unlike any other experience. And again, at the end here, when I do finally come to the realization that my playing days are numbered, I'm ready to do something else and move on.

OKMIN: Write your own chapter for the second half of the season, how you'd like things to wrap up?

RIPKEN: I'd just like thoroughly to enjoy being a baseball player, all the things that come with it. I know that, since I've made the announcement, my eyes seem to be a little wider; I seem to be noticing some of the details surrounding being a baseball player. I appreciate those a little bit more.

But I think if I were to write the script, it's very important for me to play well down the stretch. It's very important for me to compete and to be able to stick my chest out in a baseball sort of way, by the end of the season saying I played well defensively, and I hit the ball really well -- and just celebrate being a baseball player. It's important to play well, though.

OKMIN: Twenty years from now, a father takes his son to Cooperstown, and they stop by the number 8 Orioles jersey, and the kid says, "Who's Cal Ripken Jr., Dad?" What do you hope the father's answer would be? RIPKEN: That's a good way to think about it. I thought the biggest compliment you could pay any baseball player was if you called them a gamer, and a gamer meant to me that the schedules are grueling, and you come out to the ballpark every single day -- there's a game every single day, but you were willing to come to the ballpark and meet the challenges of the day, for your team, or for yourself, no matter if it was the hardest -- if it were Roger, Pedro, or Randy, you were willing to try to fight and do it, no matter if you were hot, whether you were cold, whether your team was cold. You were willing to go out there and lay it on the line. And I think if people think of me that way, that my teammates could count on me, I'd like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKMIN: A gamer and a class act on and off the field.

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