SEATTLE -- The baseball hung there in the early-evening sky, hung there just long enough for everyone in America to realize exactly what they were watching.
They were watching a man live a fairy tale.
|  | | Cal Ripken saved some of his best magic for his final All-Star Game. |
They were watching the great Cal Ripken say goodbye to the All-Star Game the way only the poets and the legends can.
It was the first pitch of the third inning of the final All-Star Game of Cal Ripken's life.
Chan Ho Park threw it, hard and straight and right down the chute.
And the moment Ripken flicked his wrists and the baseball started sailing off toward highlight-film eternity, you got this feeling in your gut, in your throat, in your suddenly thumping heart, that only the magical moments in sports deliver.
"I couldn't believe it," said Kirby Puckett, making his own final All-Star visit as the American League's honorary captain. "It was unreal. The rest of us sit and dream. Cal dreams -- and then he does it."
Who hits a home run in the last All-Star Game of his career? Willie Mays didn't. Ted Williams didn't. Babe Ruth didn't.
Only two Hall of Famers ever did, in fact: Roberto Clemente and Harmon Killebrew, both in 1971. But no one could have known then that Clemente's life would end so tragically five months later. And Killebrew would still play four more years.
So those home runs weren't this home run. Maybe no All-Star Game home run ever was quite like this home run.
But then that's Cal. Only Spielberg writes scripts like this guy.
"It couldn't have gone any other way," said Curt Schilling, his one-time teammate. "Just like he hit the home run in the game he broke The Record (That's the Lou Gehrig Iron Man Record, for those of you just returning from your flight to Saturn.) So what other way could it have gone? As soon as he hit it, my first thought was, it was just like Ted Williams hitting that home run in the last at-bat of his career. But that's Cal."
Only the day before, when Schilling was still scheduled to be the National League's starting pitcher in this game, someone had asked him if he would like to be the last man to throw a pitch to Ripken in an All-Star Game.
Schilling stared back as if he'd just been asked if he'd like to drive in the Indy 500 without a steering wheel.
"Noooooo," he said, emphatically. "I really wouldn't, because I think there's some kind of aura that follows Cal around."
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Oldest All-Star starters
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Player
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Team
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Year
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Age
|
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Pete Rose
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Phi
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1982
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41-2-31
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Willie Mays
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NYM
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1972
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41-2-19
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Ted Williams
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Bos
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1959
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40-11-5
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Graig Nettles
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SD
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1985
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40-10-25
|
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Cal Ripken
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Bal
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2001
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40-10-16
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In other words, he knew something like this would happen. Because that's Cal.
"No one's ever had that aura like he had it," Schilling said Tuesday night. "No one's ever done it the way he did it -- in every way."
It's true. Think about it. Who else has assembled these awesome freeze-frame moments to mark the milestones of his career, one after another after another?
A number dropping on a warehouse wall, stopping a baseball game in its tracks for 23 tear-jerking minutes.
A home run in the game in which he tied Gehrig's record, followed by a home run in the game in which he broke Gehrig's record. With color commentary provided by the president of the United States, of course.
A three-hit game on the night of his 3,000th hit.
The home run five years ago that pulled the '96 Orioles even with the fabled '61 Yankees for the record for most home runs hit by one team in one season.
The 12 home runs he hit in 22 swings to win the 1991 All-Star Home Run Derby -- followed by a game-winning three-run homer in the All-Star Game itself the next day.
The pop-up he caught for the final out of the only World Series he would ever play in, back in 1983.
And on and on and on.
Some men leave us their numbers and their records to remember them by. Cal Ripken leaves us frozen moments so vivid and powerful, they stick to our memory banks like Super Glue.
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Two-time All-Star MVPs
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Willie Mays, Giants (1963, 1968)
Steve Garvey, Dodgers (1974, 1978)
Gary Carter, Expos (1981, 1984)
Cal Ripken, Orioles (1991, 2001)
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And now this.
"It was a Cal Ripken moment," Puckett said. "Just more frosting on the cake for Cal. He's the man."
And he is. But how? Why? What is it about this guy that produces these scenes?
That first inning, when he trotted out to third base and found his pal, A-Rod, already there, telling him to go and play one final inning at shortstop (for the first time since September 1, 1997) -- that was a brilliant, but still preconceived, plot twist.
And the long standing ovation as he strolled to the plate for the first time -- that was as mandatory as it was deserved.
And the sixth-inning trip to Bud Selig's podium for a mid-game awards ceremony for him and Tony Gwynn -- that was as schlocky as it was moving.
But that home run, coming about three seconds after he'd acknowledged his standing O and stepped back into the box -- that was so cool, so mind-blowing, so downright Hollywood, that even Ripken himself just about passed out.
"I get back in there," he said, "and I just say, 'OK, try to stay calm. Try to put a good swing on the ball.' And when the the ball left the bat and it started to go out to left-center field, there was a certain anticipation of running to first base.
"And when it hit, and it was out, and it was official, the shot of adrenaline, the rush, the consistent feeling of goosebumps down the back of your neck as you're running around the bases, I told a few people that I actually felt like I was fast for the first time in my career, running around the bases.
"Maybe," Ripken chuckled, "I could have run a three-minute mile at that point."
And then he was back in the dugout, pounding hands and fists, popping back out for an everlasting curtain call, wondering if he'd really just done what he'd done.
"When you have the chance, just one opportunity in front of a big baseball crowd and feel the moment, feel the electricity, the magic from the moment -- that's everything," he said. "That's good stuff. I still get goosebumps just thinking about them."
But he wasn't the only one. Even the guys on the team he hit it against felt like running out to shake his hand.
"When he hit it," said Sean Casey, "I turned to Curt Schilling and said, 'Are we allowed to clap?'"
"I said, 'You'd better,'" Schilling laughed, "'because I'm gonna clap.'"
"Obviously," said Mike Piazza, the man who called the pitch, "you're on the opposing team. But you can't help but enjoy something like that. I went out to talk to Chan Ho, and he felt bad, man. He said, 'That was the first pitch I ever threw in an All-Star Game.' And I just said, 'Even though, personally, that wasn't so great, just to be part of that situation, look at it this way: It's something people will always remember.'"
And he's got that right. As Dick Radatz (Johnny Callison) and Rip Sewell (Ted Williams) could testify, somebody has to give up these storied All-Star home runs. It might as well be Chan Ho.
But what made this home run especially amazing is that it came from so far out of the ozone. After all, no position player on either team came into this game with fewer home runs this season than Ripken (who'd hit four). He'd homered exactly twice in the regular season since April 27. And nobody as old as him (40 years, 10 months, 16 days) had ever hit a home run in an All-Star Game.
But let's all repeat this together now: That's Cal.
This home run Tuesday wasn't the only run, or the only homer, of the American League's 4-1 victory. But when all else fades -- and (with the exception of Tommy Lasorda's cartoon tumble) that won't take long -- it will be Ripken's evening that goes right from the Baseball Tonight highlight montage to the Baseball's Greatest Moments book and tape collection.
"He's always had a flair for the dramatic, hasn't he?" mused AL teammate Jason Giambi. "I guess the only thing left for him to do now is hit a home run in his last at-bat in the major leagues.
"But you know what?" he laughed. "I bet I could get good odds on that one."
And he probably could. Because, after all, that's Cal.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com.
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