Cal Ripken, Jr. Quotes

Leadership isn't about simply being in charge and treating your people like soldiers and barking orders. Leadership is sharing your knowledge and your direction so that others grow and reach their potential.

Get in the game. Do the best you can. Try to make a contribution. Learn from today. Apply it to tomorrow.

You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.

If you do a job, do it right or there is no point.

I didn’t just show up for work, as has sometimes been said. I also showed up to work.

I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.

As long as I can compete, I won't quit.

All I really try and do is live up to my potential and do as well as I possibly could and to bring to the ballpark each and every day a good effort and do the best that I could each and every day.

A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.

Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me.

Whether your name is (Lou) Gehrig or (Cal) Ripken, (Joe) DiMaggio or (Jackie) Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. That's all I've ever tried to do.

The best thing you can do in the whole world is to play baseball. That's a lucky job... The passion for baseball is always going to be there.

Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.

When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?

I'd like to be remembered. I'd like to think that someday two guys will be talking in a bar and one of them will say something like, 'Yeah, he's a good shortstop, but he's not as good as ole Ripken was.'

So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it's almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.

I always thought being a gamer and someone who had a sense of responsibility to the game and to my teammates was the honorable thing.

Different styles work for different guys... If you can handle shortstop and hit, teams will find a way to pencil you into the lineup.

We consider ourselves the luckiest fans on the face of the Earth.

You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event ,and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do.

Each and every day had its challenges.

What keeps me going? I guess it's just a desire to keep trying to contribute and do things in life.

I love baseball. The game allowed me the influence to impact kids in a positive way. This gives me a chance to talk to some social issues.

There is somebody in our lives that we could call the Energizer Bunny and we admire for those qualities.

By far, the best moment of my big league career was when I caught the last out at the World Series.

There is a feeling when you are in Yankee Stadium that it is a very sacred ground you are walking on and you know you had the same feelings that other great players have had in other eras that played right there on that field.

The last thing you want to do is go down in the history of All-Star game competition as the only injury (his nose was broken by Roberto Hernandez) sustained during the team picture.

I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.

I think baseball has moved on in many ways and the focus on the competitions on the field is really what the game is all about. It seems to be healthy. It seems more people are watching it.

My approach to every game was to try to erase the games that were before and try to focus on the game at hand.

I was always compared to the Energizer Bunny in my consecutive game streak because every day I showed up and went to work and they said he keeps going and going and going, but a lot of people do that.

I kept thinking, 'this must be the coolest job - I'd like to be a professional baseball player.' They were getting paid to play a game, and what a cool lifestyle that was.

That's the result of the black cloud on baseball, .. Until it's rid of steroids, people are naturally going to think that.

Early in my career, I decided I never wanted to get out of shape.

As long as I can compete, I won't quit. Reaching three-thousand is not the finish line as long as I can contribute.

Disadvantaged kids many times don't have the support network that we all have. I know how important my parents were in my life and many of these kids don't have that support network.

The streak has become my identity; it's who I've become.

I haven't given it (achieving 3,000 hits) much thought. I was taught a certain approach, how to come to the ballpark. I try not to do too much thinking about things like that. In this society we measure success in different ways. Three thousand (hits) represents success over a career, not a season. It'll be nice to get to that point.

In the end of the day, I feel pretty good about the contributions you can make.

The reality is that players can't play forever.

I take pride in the fact that you are able to make some good contributions to the sport at certain times.

If you really think about it, the stadium can't last forever. There is going to have to come a time when it replaces.

A lot of people have been telling me that I was going to be in the Hall of Fame and those are nice words and I try not to think about it, but when the call came, it made it real. It was a pretty darned good feeling.

I had a marvelous baseball career and after my baseball career, there is an abundance of opportunity out there.

There are so many great moments in Yankee Stadium. There is nothing better or no better place better to compete when you are good and the Yankees are good and you are playing a big series in September in Yankee Stadium, four game series, there is no greater excitement anywhere than the Yankee Stadium.

I am driven by what you are able to accomplish and how you are able to help some people. I go about it each and every day, sometimes I think I say yes too much and I am too busy in my life.

I think the cloud of suspicion has been hanging over baseball for a while. I think there has been some positive things that have come out of that. There has been a drug test policy that was been implemented that got the blessings of both the Players Association and MLB. They are trying to maintain the integrity of this sport and trying to get it back, but that cloud I think will hang over a little longer.

I don't love the idea of the responsibility falling on the manager. That just adds to their in-game responsibility.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, you couldn't say you were better than the other person because you knew you had a secret. You knew you had cheated.