Word: ripkens
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...someone who has spent endless time over the past decade listening to almost every game, suffering through almost every pitch, watching Ripken has been painful...
...fair, the young are always impatient with the old, and Ripken had passed the prime of his career before I seriously began to root for the Orioles in 1988. For the first ten years of his career he averaged 25 home runs and 90 RBIs, remarkable offensive numbers for his generally weak-hitting position...
...also deserves credit for the way he has always approached the fielding of his position, which is truly scientific and has resulted in two well-earned Gold Gloves. George Will's instant baseball classic Men at Work chronicled the way that Ripken meticulously prepares for each hitter, using scouting to anticipate the batter's tendencies to allow him to get to balls otherwise out of his (limited) range...
...Ripken were a basketball player, he would never take the last shot. TV commentators would laud him for how his pick freed the guy who did take the last shot, but he would never take the risk himself. Success or failure would ultimately be placed on someone else's shoulders...
Unfortunately for Ripken, the beauty of baseball is that there is no passing of the ball, meaning that each and every player's weaknesses will be systematically exposed over the course of a season or career. Ripken's weakness is an inability to hit in the clutch, and as an Orioles fan, I can't forgive him because he simply broke my heart too many times with a dribbler to third or a weak foul pop down the first base line...