Cal Ripken

I enjoyed reading this book. This biography included many overall facts about Cal Ripken Jr’s baseball career, but the major focus of the book was his 1988 season with the Baltimore Orioles. I liked the selection of this particular season: the one in which the Orioles lost the first 21 games straight. When writing about an athlete as celebrated and talented as Cal Ripken Jr. it would be easy to simply write positives, and the decision to focus on this struggle instead made the story more meaningful to read. The meaningfulness of the text was highlighted on the last page with the words: “winning is easy on a person, but you learn more from losing. you learn to keep trying, each day a little harder than the day before”.
The depicted time period highlights a sore period of Cal Ripken Jr.’s career. The book, however, includes information regarding Ripken’s positives and strengths, though, so that readers do not walk away with a skewed and inaccurate image of Ripken. The first page of the book includes a large header that reads “Iron Man Cal” and details Ripken’s feat of playing in 2,632 straight games in his career, his World Series wins, as well as his 1983 title of Most Valuable Player of the American League. The author’s decision to preface this story of loss and struggle with Ripken’s many achievements creates a nice balance for readers.
The message of the story is: losing teaches you a lot.… (altro)