In no way am i accusing Ripken but that random blog post brings up a few interesting points. For one Gehrigs, Ironman "unbeatable record" would've been alot more likely to break than Dimaggios "56 Game Record" for instance, because a bad night whether on steroids or not compared to just turning up to bat is a big difference. Here's a large part of the blog with the link below:
So let’s talk about 1996. Remember that 1996 Oriole team? I do, because it was the first time as their fan they made the playoffs. You remember the ’96 team – it’s the one in which 12 year old Jeffrey Maier snatched a long Jeter drive from OF Tony Tarasco, making it a home run. But another highlight of that team and year is that every starter had 20 HR or more, and the Orioles set the then all time record for team home runs.
In 1996, Ripken hit over 50% more homeruns than he did in either of the previous 2 years, or for the rest of his playing career. In 1999, at age 39, he was repeatedly injured, but the .276 career batting average man had a smashing year statistically: .340 b.a., same number of doubles in that partial season as he hit in full seasons towards career end (27) (except for ’96 when he had 40), and was on a 32 homeruns pace over a 600AB season (the most HR he ever had was 34, in his MVP year of 1991). Lest it be overlooked, Ripken holds the MLB consecutive games played streak, from May 30, 1982 – Sept 20, 1998. That huge guy (6’4″, 193cm) played the hardest position physically after pitcher and catcher, and kept the energy up for every game.
This proves nothing, but Ripken’s sidestepping the steriods question in 2006 doesn’t help make sense of his secure place during the steroids era.
But Cal’s remarks in 2006 are of the same ‘gee whiz’ nature that convicted steroid users use when lying about or minimizing extent of their usage, e.g.:
“I’m curious [whether McQuire used steroids], but I don’t feel that I’m in a position to judge,” Ripken said at the baseball winter meetings. “History will judge us all in some way. And, if you’re content with the truth coming out, then whether your judgment day is now or 50 years from now doesn’t matter.”
“A smarter person will have suspicions when you look around and see people coming back a lot bigger than they were,” he said. “I realize that steroids were an issue in other sports. But no way did I know it was as big as it’s starting to show it was.”
“I think we all were very disappointed that steroids came flying out into the game of baseball. The integrity of the game was in question,” Ripken said. “It’s sad that a cloud is over baseball. Maybe the whole story has not been told yet. I believe the story will come out in time.”
