Cal Ripken Jr. directs Damon Vargas, 9, during Scotts and MLB It’s Good Out Here Field Refurbishment Program at Tom Conley Field on Monday in Ladson, South Carolina. (Photo by Dan Hale/MLB Photos)
They’re going about it different ways and in different roles, but few people are as committed to making baseball more appealing to kids than Cal Ripken Jr. and Bryce Harper.
Ripken, who in December was hired as a special adviser to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on youth programs and outreach, was in Ladson, S.C. on Monday to unveil the first of six baseball and softball fields that MLB, in partnership with Scotts, will refurbish this season. The “It’s Good Out Here” field refurbishment program, which is one part of Manfred’s Play Ball initiative, will give kids throughout the country more places to play over the next three years. Monday’s unveiling of “major league-caliber” Tom Conley Field kicked off the week leading up to MLB’s Play Ball Weekend, when all 30 teams will encourage kids to play baseball or softball in some form.
“The whole idea is just to get kids to play more baseball, and not just the formal kind, with nine guys on nine,” Ripken said from Ladson, where he offered instruction to some of the several hundred kids who attended the event. “If you can figure out a one-on-one game, or you can have a catch, we just want people playing the game and enjoying the game as best they can.”
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Youth participation in baseball and softball has declined over the past two decades, but Ripken cited a report by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association that baseball participation was up 4.3 percent from 2014 to 2015 as a sign of progress. To continue to grow the game at the grass-roots level, Ripken said the sport has to be presented in a “fun” way. Harper, who appeared to use a different f-word on Monday night, mentioned the importance of fun in an oft-cited interview with ESPN the Magazine that served as the platform for his unofficial “Make Baseball Fun Again” campaign.
“If a guy pumps his fist at me on the mound, I’m going to go, ‘Yeah, you got me. Good for you. Hopefully I get you next time,’” Harper told Tim Keown in March. “That’s what makes the game fun. You want kids to play the game, right? What are kids playing these days? Football, basketball.”
“All the old guys think the game was better when they played,” Ripken said of the ensuing backlash to Harper’s comments from the likes of Hall of Famer Goose Gossage. “And now I’m an old guy. But I think there’s always been an element of emotion that’s shown itself in our game. I still remember Dennis Eckersley’s emotion when he struck you out to end the game. That didn’t make me too happy; he did that a number of times to me. I think it’s an individual expression of playing the game and it doesn’t bother me. It’s not my style, I wouldn’t personally be doing it, but I think when you’re having fun and you are expressing yourself, I think that overall is good for the sport.”
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Last month, Manfred said that it will be up to this generation of players to define baseball’s unwritten rules at the major league level. Ripken agreed, but added that kids still need to be taught the “right way” to play the game. That doesn’t include choreographed home run trots.
“Kids are going to copy what they see on TV,” Ripken said. “Many kids told me over the years that they were learning all of my different batting stances. That couldn’t have been good for their development either, but I think at the youth level, when you’re teaching the game, sportsmanship matters. Respect for the game is respect for your opponent.”
Ripken addressed the respect that opposing pitchers have shown Harper this season, including the record-tying six walks he received Sunday in Chicago.
“We all knew he had super talent and we all knew that he probably got rushed to the big leagues a little bit, but he was still doing great things,” Ripken said of Harper. “Now he’s the superstar player that everybody thought he would be and those teams are going to look at him and go, ‘Okay, I don’t want to give him a chance to beat us.’”
Ripken, who never walked more than three times in a game during his two MVP seasons, recalled urging his own team to pitch around Frank Thomas when the former White Sox slugger was in the prime of his career. Based on his own experience of being pitched around, Ripken figured the strategy would not only prevent Thomas from single-handedly beating the Orioles, but also frustrate him into swinging at pitches out of the zone.
“I would swing the bat and I was aggressive, so I wouldn’t walk that much,” Ripken said. “But in the year when we were in a total rebuilding process [1988], I felt like they were pitching around me all the time. To my own demise, I said, ‘Okay, I’m not going to let you pitch around me, I’m going to swing at a bad pitch,’ which only leads to a slump. … You have to be disciplined enough to take that walk. Barry Bonds probably was the best to ever do that. For me, I wanted to swing and I would get a little frustrated. I thought the strategy against Frank Thomas years ago, if you walk him enough, you’re going to force him to say, ‘Okay, I don’t want to walk’ and then you’re going to force him to get himself out. Barry would never do that and I don’t think Bryce is ever going to do that either.”
Like seemingly everyone in baseball, Ripken has a Dusty Baker story, despite the fact that Baker only spent two years in the American League at the end of his playing career. Baker managed a team of MLB all-stars, including Ripken, that played an exhibition series in Japan in 1996. The two later worked together as analysts at TBS.
“He was with the Oakland A’s and it was a double play ball,” Ripken said. “He’s running toward second base and I hadn’t played against him because he was in the other league too much, so I didn’t know him. He’s running in there and he’s standing up and he starts yelling and screaming and he never slides. I turn the double play — I threw it over his head because I was tall enough to throw it over his head — and I said, ‘What the hell was that?’ He looks at me and he goes, ‘I had knee surgery and I can only slide on one side. I’m trying to learn how to slide on the other side and I couldn’t do it.’ He started laughing as he ran off the field.”
During the Nationals’ search for Manager Matt Williams’s replacement last fall, Ripken said he’d “answer the phone” if the Nats called. In an interview with MLB Network on Monday, Ripken reiterated that he’s perfectly content in his current role, but he would listen if the right opportunity to manage came along.
