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Doing It All excerpted from Chapter One: My Life in Baseball
In the minor leagues I did it all: I managed, I played -- I even drove the bus. I did all three in 1962 at Appleton, Wisconsin. I always said I got the managing job in Appleton because I had driven the bus for half a year in 1960, after Earl Weaver, who was the manager in Appleton at the time, fired the bus driver. Everyone said, "Ripken will drive the bus," and so I wound up driving it the rest of the year. Then when I went back to Appleton to manage in '62, Ollie Lindquist, who owned the bus company, wouldn't give the ball club the bus unless I drove it.
I enjoyed every day I spent in the minor leagues. I enjoyed every day I spent in the big leagues. I would go back and do everything exactly the same as I did the first time. There's only one thing I probably wouldn't do.
In 1957, when I was playing in Phoenix, the clutch on the bus was slipping as we were halfway up a mountain. The bus driver got the bus off to the side of the road, and I said I'd adjust the clutch, because I had a little bit of a mechanical background with vehicles. I told the bus driver to turn the wheels of the bus all the way to the left, and I got under the bus and adjusted the clutch. Then we drove on over the mountain successfully and got to our destination.
Well, as I said, there's one thing I'd change: If I had that to do again, I'd tell the bus driver to let the wheels of the bus stay straight. With those wheels turned, if the brakes had failed and the bus had drifted backward, it would've run right over me.
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