Just Like Dad<\/b><\/p>\n
Maybe my father could have been a successful major-league catcher if he hadn\u2019t injured his shoulder. We\u2019ll never know. Coming up through the minors I heard a lot of stories about frustrated fathers pushing their sons to achieve something they never did. But Senior wasn\u2019t that way at all. One of his strangest beliefs is that you should do in life what you enjoy doing.<\/p>\n
The pressure he did exert on his children was this: whatever we did we should do correctly and to the best of our abilities. He always said, \u201cBe yourself and prove yourself.\u201d He hates anything shoddy or lazy. My brother Billy says I broke Lou Gehrig\u2019s record because I could. I might add, on behalf of my father, and because I could, I should.<\/p>\n
Senior was inducted into the Orioles\u2019 Hall of Fame during the 1996 season. At the banquet he was funny, direct and foursquare in his remarks. In conclusion, he said that he accepted the honor on behalf of all the equally dedicated men he had worked with in the minor leagues for all those years.<\/p>\n
Then it was my turn. It was difficult. I wasn\u2019t certain I could say what I wanted about my father and what he means to me. So I told a little story about my two children, Rachel, six at the time, and Ryan, then three. They\u2019d been bickering for weeks, and I explained how one day I heard Rachel taunt Ryan, \u201cYou\u2019re just trying to be like Daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a few moments of indecision, I asked Rachel, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with trying to be like Dad?\u201d<\/p>\n
When I finished telling the story, I looked at my father and added, \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve always tried to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cal Ripken, Jr., and Mike Bryan, \u201cThe Iron Man\u2019s Mentor,\u201d Reader\u2019s Digest, August, 1997, p. 131.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just Like Dad Maybe my father could have been a successful major-league catcher if he hadn\u2019t injured his shoulder. We\u2019ll never know. Coming up through the minors I heard a lot of stories about frustrated fathers pushing their sons to achieve something they never did. But Senior wasn\u2019t that way at all. One of his … Continue reading “Ripken, Cal, Jr. and Sr.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}