It was Friday night. The Tampa Bay Rays were in town. The Baltimore Orioles were locked in a race to win the American League East against the New York Yankees. Pitcher Dean Kremer took a no-hitter into the seventh inning.
What could have made the evening better? Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball’s “Ironman” always makes things better, right?
He was at Friday night’s game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. But he wasn’t in a customary seat down the first-base line befitting a member of the team’s ownership group.
No, Ripken was working the crowd in the outfield and serving as the “guest splasher” in section 86, also called the “splash zone.”
A month ago the Orioles teased Ripken’s first appearance as the guest splasher in a social media video. When he was asked to handle those duties, Ripken replied, “Finally. Can I bring my own hose?”
Well, he didn’t need his own hose. But he made quite the entrance in section 86 when it was his time to, well, splash.
Wearing one of Baltimore’s City Connect jerseys, he took a friendship bracelet from an Orioles fan and put it on before he assumed his splash duties. Alongside Mr. Splash, Ripken handled dousing the crowd with water, as is customary in the splash zone.
One fan held up a custom-made sign, made to look like the countdown Baltimore used when Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record. It said, “Cal’s Splash Zone Streak” and had a “1” underneath.
He is at least the third notable guest splasher this year. New Orioles owner David Rubenstein handled the duties in May, shortly after he assumed majority ownership of the franchise. He now owns 100% of the team.
In June, Orioles fan and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Joan Jett threw out the first pitch and served as the guest splasher when she was in town for a pair of shows at Columbia’s Merriweather Post Pavilion as part of her tour with Alanis Morissette and Morgan Wade.
Ripken is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame, the Major League Baseball All-Century Team and had his No. 8 retired by the team.
As a player, he spent his entire 21-year career with the Orioles, where early in his career he won the 1982 American League Rookie of the Year award and helped the franchise win its most recent World Series title in 1983.
But he is best known best to baseball fans as the game’s ironman, as he played in a MLB-record 2,632 games, breaking the record previously held by Gehrig.
By the end of his career he was a 19-time All-Star, a two-time American League MVP, a two-time AL Gold Glove winner, an eight-time Silver Slugger, and the 1992 Roberto Clemente Award winner. He finished his career with 3,184 hits, 431 home runs, and 1,695 RBI.
