It’s been 25 years since Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played in Major League Baseball, a feat the Baltimore Orioles star punctuated with an unforgettable lap around Camden Yards in the middle of his 2,131st successive start.
Since reaching that milestone on Sept. 6, 1995, Ripken has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, battled prostate cancer and, just recently, celebrated his 60th birthday.
“I tell you what, in some respects it seems like it was yesterday. You can relive the moment, and everything is crystal clear,” Ripken said recently. “In other ways, it seems like it’s another lifetime. Twenty-five years is a long period of time. Things move on. We all move on.
No matter where he goes, Ripken usually runs into folks who claim to be part of the sellout crowd that gathered to see him break Gehrig’s record of 2,130 straight games that for decades seemed unapproachable.
“People tell me all the time they were at that game,” Ripken said. “It seems like there were a heck of lot more who tell me that than 40-some thousand people who were actually there.”