Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [185]
So Mantle sits back and starts watching Bird shooting, and two minutes go by, and I notice Bird hasn’t missed a shot. Two more minutes go by; Bird still hasn’t missed a shot. And I see Mantle start to sit up, to get on the edge of his chair and get more and more intently focused on watching this. No joke, Bird has probably taken a hundred shots in a row and not missed one. Mantle is just totally amazed by what he’s seeing, and I’m watching him watch Bird. I’m getting a real kick out of this because I’m seeing this guy, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, watching one of the greatest basketball players of all time, all the while knowing that there are only two people in the world who are aware of what’s going on now, and it’s me and Mickey Mantle.
I think Bird was shooting for close to ten minutes without missing a shot, and finally Mantle gets to the point where he has to say something. He’s just so amazed by what he’s been seeing that he looks at me and says, “This boy doesn’t miss.” And I looked at him and I said, “Yeah, but you’re Mickey Mantle.”
Cal Ripken Jr. debuted on August 10, 1981, for the Baltimore Orioles. He would end his career with 3,184 hits, nineteen All Star selections, eight Silver Slugger Awards, two Gold Gloves, two AL MVP Awards, and the 1983 World Series championship. But ESPN would broadcast his most notable individual accolade on September 6, 1995, when he broke Lou Gehrig’s record and played in his 2,131st consecutive game.
Ripken had come close to missing this moment on two occasions. In 1985, he sprained an ankle, but thanks to an off day was able to play the following game. In 1993, he twisted a knee and thought the streak would be over. But like always, he managed to get ready in time.
Chris Berman and Buck Martinez called the record-setting game for the network. When the final out of the top of the fifth inning was called, amid cheers throughout Camden Yards, Berman boomed, “And let it be said that number eight, Cal Ripken Jr., has reached the unreachable star.”
And then Berman, known through most of his career for his boisterous voice, his glib nicknaming of athletes, and his rapid-fire delivery during highlights, stunned the national television audience by actually staying silent (Martinez following suit) during the twenty-two-minute celebration that ensued. Berman tactfully let viewers witness the spectacle, the elated cheering of the crowd, the unveiling of the record-setting number on the front of the B&O Warehouse, without interceding or interfering. He let the scene speak for itself and didn’t try to upstage the pictures or sound with his own patter. It was a classy gesture, and it drove home the point that ESPN was the place where momentous things happened in the world of sports; that, indeed, it was the world of sports in all its facets, its fantasies, its realities.
CHRIS BERMAN:
It wasn’t like I was going to flex my muscles and get that game for myself. The record-breaking game was supposed to be on another night, so it wouldn’t have been on my schedule, but the season started two and a half weeks late because there was a short strike, so it got changed. Around early May, when I saw that it was going to fall on a Wednesday, I just said to myself, “Holy shit, what do you know, that’s my night.” But there was still time, a lot of shit could happen, rainouts, whatever. It’s baseball. You can’t say in May that a particular September day will be game 2,131.
In early August, I started reading a book on Lou Gehrig, which I thought would be a nice way to prepare. Nobody told me to do it; that was my contribution, all by myself. I just wanted to tell some Gehrig stories that weren’t really known, not just that he gave a great speech on July 4, but stuff beyond that. Two weeks before the game, I told Howard Katz, “I view this telecast as a semi-announcerless game.” He went, “What do you mean by that?” I actually didn’t know exactly what I meant, but I gotta give myself a little credit. Knowing ahead of time that would