Brady Anderson looks back on playing with the Iron Man and The Streak

Brady Anderson looks back on playing with the Iron Man and The Streak

Brady Anderson. Brady, how are you, man? Good. How you doing, Rob? You look like you still patrol out there. You said that. That’s very nice of you. Appreciate that. Now, 2131. What do you remember about that evening? Um, it was sort of a culmination of watching, you know, your friend accomplish something that, uh, when I grew up seemed, uh, incomprehensible. That was one of baseball’s uh, most hallowed records and considered one of the most unbreakable records. And uh here 40 years later, another person almost parallel personalities in a way like real um just pure hardworking guys who wanted to play every day. So it’s I think fitting that a guy like Cal broke the record of a a person as revered as Lou Garri. Um I remember I had to give a speech that they asked me to write a speech and and um present it after the game. So that was on my mind a lot. You know that’s a there’s a lot of anxiety for me. Um, so I wanted to play well in the 2130 game in the 2131. Um, obviously the game was about Cal, but as a player you want to play well, too. So your your your mindset is, um, how can I help contribute? And and that game, we talk about it like Cal was just a guy that came to work every day. 3,000 hits, 400 home runs. He was a contributor in the middle of that lineup throughout all of this. Oh, of course. I mean, a power hitting shorts stop. Um, very underrated defender. He did get his credit um amongst his peers as a defender, but I think um in the baseball world in general, he was never quite appreciated for what what a great fielder he was. Um I’m not certain why that is, but I think about the streak even even lately uh now that it’s coming up, you think about how it at what point did he actually start thinking about it? Like you know, you play your first game, you come home, you’re taking off your clothes, you’re thinking, okay, only 2,130 to go. I mean, I don’t Well, I don’t know at what point he started thinking, uh, this might be something I can accomplish. It’s such a such a an odd thing to do. I know you probably didn’t want to talk about it, but at what point did you what point did you start thinking about this thing was even jinxes or things like that. So, I used to talk about him. I remember seven years. He had seven years left. I met him in ‘ 88. So, I started talking to him about it in ‘ 88. He’d ask me some questions what um what he thought it meant. And um like I said, it was one of the most important and and prestigious records in in all of sport. Um so yeah, I never thought I was going to jinx it or something like that. It was something we spoke about quite often. Now, you talked about how he’s underappreciated. You see guys, you saw guys like A-Rod, huge shortstop. You see guys like Gunner Henderson and back when Cal did it, it was unheard of because of Calgarly. It’s not unheard of anymore. For sure. He was at the time, I think, the biggest short, tallest short stop to ever play of the game. Again, you’d have to play with him every day. He’s another one of those players. His positioning, his his accuracy of his throws. I think one year he, you know, he played obviously he played 162 games. I think he had one year where he had three errors. That’s a good year for an outfielder. So, to think about all just a bad hop here and there, a bad throw that the first baseman doesn’t dig out. He was a phenomenal fielder. Um, like I said, hugely underrated. He got his credit as a hitter because he’s a power hitting shortstop in a days when there weren’t many of those. But um I never thought he I never felt like he got his due as a fielder. Uh you were also a great fielder and underrated. Thanks a lot Brady.

Former Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson reflects on Cal Ripken’s consecutive game record, how he changed the shortstop position and more.