While there was celebration of The Streak this year, it had been a controversial record before 1995, when people criticized Ripken for playing every day. In 1996, Ripken became the focal point of controversy when Orioles manager Davey Johnson moved him for six games to third base after fourteen years at shortstop in the middle of the season, replacing him with Manny Alexander, who turned out to be a disaster. Johnson himself was taken aback at the furor this decision created. During the off season, the Orioles' front office orchestrated a carefully planned changing of the guard, meeting with Ripken to discuss moving over to third, and bringing in someone Ripken could accept as a replacement, Mike Bordick, who came over from Oakland as a free agent and signed a three-year contract. This plan went as far as Bordick actually talking to Ripken on the telephone to make sure that he was all right with Bordick coming to Baltimore.

Ripken suffered from serious back problems in 1997 that nearly forced him to sit out. He received a barrage of criticism for continuing to play every day, but he came back to be the Orioles best player during the postseason. The criticism grew even worse in 1998. The same media that sang Ripken's praises in 1995 -- and profited from it -- now ridiculed his record and called for his benching. The Baltimore Sun's Sunday Perspective section on August 2 ran a lead article titled "Time to End The Streak," written by the associate dean of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. "For the sake of a splendid organization with a rich tradition, for the sake of a team that needs to find its soul and its spirit, Cal Ripken should step aside for a few games and let the organization free itself of this psychological barrier," the article stated.

Eventually Ripken gave in and sat down. On September 20, 1998, when the country was caught up in the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home-run race, word spread minutes before a Sunday night game against the New York Yankees that Ripken would not play. He went to manager Ray Miller shortly before the start of the game and told him, "It's time." Miller crossed Ripken's name off the lineup card and penciled in rookie Ryan Minor, who, when told he was playing that night, nervously asked Miller, "Does Cal know?"

The Streak ended at 2,632, on Ripken's terms, as well it should have been. He earned that right, and the rival Yankees paid tribute to Ripken by standing on the steps of the dugout and cheering, as did the packed house at Camden Yards, who called for Ripken to come out of the dugout. He did, waving to the crowd during an ovation that lasted several minutes before play began again.

After the game, Ripken met with reporters at a press conference with his wife, Kelly. He said he was "very proud, not necessarily of the number of The Streak but the fact that my teammates could always depend on me to be out there."

It made sense to end The Streak at this time. Ripken, who had a mediocre season, with fourteen home runs, sixty-four RBIs, and a .271 batting average, had not played in a meaningless September since 1993. There was no September in baseball in 1994 because of the strike, and 1995, the season of the Lou Gehrig record, there was no way Ripken was going to sit down. The next two Septembers the Orioles were involved in pennant races. In September 1998, with Baltimore laboring through a disappointing season, there was no good reason for Ripken to play every day.

The record -- 2,632 consecutive games-will likely never be broken. McGwire, who set the most revered record in baseball when he broke Roger Maris's record of sixty-one home runs in a season, with an astounding seventy home runs in 1998, said Ripken's record "is the one that blows all the others away."

The Streak may always be debated. But there is no debate about this: on September 6, 1995, the center of the baseball universe was Camden Yards, and Cal Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game was a supernova, lighting up an entire nation.

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