In his playing career, Cal Ripken Jr. was in 2,632 games. He said the only time you’re really 100 percent is maybe the first day of spring training.
“In many ways you have to play less than 100 percent and I always thought when I got injured, or had a slight injury, positive things would happen. So maybe it was a positive outlook. And more than likely, things did because when you feel really good, sometimes you’re pressing. Sometimes you’re trying to make it happen and then when you have a little injury you say, OK, let me stay within myself and then let it happen. Things seem to happen better,” he said.
He said he did have injuries, but his body healed fast. If someone got hit on the back of the hand with a pitch, they might swell up or get a broken bone.
“I didn’t have either. All of a sudden you look at it three innings later and you couldn’t tell where I got hit, so genetically, I was pretty blessed. Mentally, I think the hardest part about playing every day is convincing yourself that you can,” Ripken said.
He added hat he had two fantastic years in the big leagues, 1982 and 1983.
“We were a good team. I was learning myself. I was trying to get better and as the season rolled on, I just played in every game. So once you prove that you can and you finish really strongly, then you know and so then it was just a matter of going out there every day trying to duplicate. I always laugh because I didn’t really create the streak. The managers that write your name in the lineup created the streak. But you have to be deserving to be in a lineup every day. And my simple approach was to come to the ballpark ready to play and the manager chose me,” he added.
Ripken has been out of baseball as long as he played. His last year was 2001.
“And my business life started when I was 41 years old and so then when you go through these different business experiences, most of the time you feel like you’ve spotted everybody else 20 years. But then you realize that some of the things that you’ve learned and the way you learn to work at it, all the values that you didn’t know you were learning in baseball can apply to business life as well. So I found that to be very true. The important part, number one, is showing up,” Ripken said.
