"Only the strong survive"...
Superman may have been "The Man of Steel" but give him a dose of kryptonite and he was helpless. No such weaknesses for baseball's new "Iron Man", Cal Ripken who inherited that title from the immortal Lou Gehrig on this date in 1995...
Before a crowd of 46,272 at Baltimore's Camden Yards, Ripken passed Gehrig's consecutive game streak by playing in his 2,131st game. While playing every game for 13 1/2 years was thought to be one of baseball's unbroken records, Ripken did it with a flourish by adding a 4th inning home run to help the Orioles win their game against California...
On hand for the nationally televised game were President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Joe DiMaggio and other notables who witnessed the game being stopped at the end of 4 1/2 innings, making the game and the new record official. For 20 minutes, Cal Ripken ran a victory lap around the field slapping as many hands as he could reach before play was resumed. It was a sports spectacle to be savored for generations to come and it happened on September 6, 1995...
More September 6 Memories...
1620) The Pilgrims leave on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England to settle in the New World...
1957) Paul Anka tops the charts with "Diana"...
1957) Elvis Presley records "White Christmas", "Silent Night", and "Here Comes Santa Claus"...
1959) The first Barbie Doll is sold by Mattel...
1966) "Star Trek" premieres on NBC-TV...
1968) Eric Clapton records his guitar solo for The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"...
1971) "Go Away Little Girl" tops the charts for the second time, this time for Donny Osmond (the first version in 1963 was done by Steve Lawrence)...
1972) John and Yoko appear on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on Labor Day Weekend...
1975) Martina Navratilova requests political asylum while in New York for the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament...
1982) Chicago's "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" is #1...
1993) Don Henley, Jimmy Buffett, Elton John, Sting and Aerosmith perform at a benefit concert in Boston for Walden Woods...
1995) LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman takes the 5th at the O.J. Simpson murder trial...
1995) Cal Ripken breaks Lou Gehrig's record (feature story)...
1996) Eddie Murray of the Orioles hits his 500th home run becoming only the 3rd player to have at least 3,000 hits and 500 home runs...
1997) The world bids farewell to Britain's Princess Diana at a funeral service at Westminster Abbey...
Happy Birthday to...
1937) JoAnne Worley...
1944) Pink Floyd's Roger Waters...
1944) Swoosie Kurtz...
1947) Jane Curtin...
1958) Redneck comedian Jeff Foxworthy...
1964) Rosie Perez...
Commentary...
On the night he broke Lou Gehrig's long-standing record, Cal Ripken was quoted as saying "they said we'll never get this game going if you don't run around the field. I said I didn't have the energy to make it. They said, then walk."...
I remember watching that game on television and feeling that I was watching a real hero. Ripken said he "was truly humbled to have my name spoken in the same breath as Lou Gehrig's" and I believed him. While this record wasn't the most glamorous record to break, it stood untouched for 56 years and it was broken by a blue-collar athlete with a great work ethic who was humbled by achieving it...
By the way if you drove to the game at Camden Yards that night, gas was $1.15 a gallon...
Honk if you love peace and quiet...
