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Cal Ripken Jr. Today in Sports History (September 6th)

September 6th 1995

Baltimore, Maryland

Cal Ripken, Jr. of the the Baltimore Orioles broke one of baseball's legendary records and one that few believed would ever be broken.  He started in his 2,131 consecutive major league baseball game thus breaking Lou Gehrig's hallowed record.

Cal began his streak of consecutive games played on May 30th 1982 and he would not miss a start for 17 consecutive years (all with the Baltimore Orioles).  In the process Cal would be Rookie of the Year in 1982 and American League MVP twice. 1983 and 1991.   He would go on to play in in 2,632 games in row before voluntarily removing himself from the Orioles lineup on September 19th 1998.

Ripken retired after the 2001 season holding the lifetime record for home runs by a shortstop (345).  He was named MLB All Star Game MVP 2 times, 1991 and his last All Star game in 2001, where he hit a solo home run in his first plate appearance.

In 2007 he was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame where a record crowd of 75,000 fans welcomed him and San Diego Padres legend Tony Gwynn into baseball immortality.

1966 World Series

The 1966 World Series was a matchup between American champion Baltimore Orioles and National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
On paper the Orioles pitching was not as deep or commanding as the Dodgers twosome of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.  Koufax was the 1966 Cy Young Award Winner as baseball's best pitcher and Drysdale had won the Cy Young Award in 1962.
The Orioles however had one of the greatest hitters in major league history in Frank Robinson, whom they obtained in a trade from the Cincinnati Reds before the season started.
Robinson had won the National League MVP in 1961 with the Reds and then became the first player to win the award in both leagues when he won the American League MVP in 1966.  This was a "triple crown" year for Frank Robinson as he led the AL in batting average (.316), runs batted in (122) and home runs (49) and powered the Orioles to their first league championship since moving to Baltimore.

The Series was a four game sweep by the Orioles that no one expected as the Orioles pitchers limited the Dodgers to 2 runs in the 4 games.  The Dodgers bats went silent after game 1 and they were shut out in the last 3 games (6-0,1-0 and 1-0) facing Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally.   Frank Robinson, fittingly, won the World Series MVP.

The Orioles became the first non-Yankees american league team to win the World Series since the 1948 Cleveland Indians.