Why One Shouldn't Say Cal Ripken's Consecutive Games Played Streak Won't Be Broken

One of the greatest baseball players of all time, Cal Ripken Jr., attended the tilt between the team he played his entire 21-year career with, the Baltimore Orioles, and birds of another feather, the St. Louis Cardinals, on Monday eve.

Cal Ripken Jr. attends the Orioles v. Cardinals game at Camden Yards on May 26, 2025.

When the TV monitors panned to Mr. Ripkin, Cardinals' broadcaster Brad Thompson opined on Mr. Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games played streak: "Never, ever, ever, will we see that record approached, ever," Mr. Thompson commented,

Stl. Cardinal TV broadcasters Brad Thompson (left) and Chip Carey. Thompson sported a 4.46 ERA and 96 ERA+ in six MLB seasons mostly with the Cards.

He continued discussing Mr. Ripken's record with colleague Chip Carey, "You know what it takes to post, every single day, to be able to show up and play, to the extent that he did, simply amazing."

The latter part of that quote by color commentator Mr. Thompson I have no quibble with. However, the former part of that quote dabbles in prisoner-of-the-moment thinking.

Why would I say that?

We don't know what the future will bring in terms of nutrition and how it will affect athletic training.

Similarly, in 1925, when the previous consecutive games record holder, New York Yankee Lou Gehrig, began his streak, they couldn't conceive of what we know today in regards nutrition.

For instance, in the 1925 book "Food and the Family" published in Britain, vitamins are referred to as "mysterious substances of, as yet, unknown chemical composition, present in very small amounts in many, but not all, foods." Though the author hit the bullseye when he noted, "They are essential to life."

Back in the States, that same year, there was a cigarette diet. Sure, it was a marketing campaign concocted for the Lucky Strike cigarette brand, but the notion that the population would be amenable to the very idea of smoking to suppress appetite thus lose weight shows how ill-informed the US was regarding health and nutrition.

These are but two examples that illustrate the ever-learning situation humankind journeys in an effort to take care of ourselves, thus, train our athletes better.

One day, we may even accept some form of supplement that keeps a player on the field. Realizing our prior knowledge was incomplete and we benefit from this newfound nutritional guidance because we now get to see the best guys and gals play more often.

It is a guarantee that humankind will become more knowledgeable in nutrition, training, and rest. It is reasonable to believe that knowledge will lead to someone, eventually, playing more games than Mr. Ripkin did.

Sure, Cal Ripken's ability to post every day was an anomaly. There will be another baseball player to come along with that same ability. Combining that ability with enhanced training and nutrition techniques that we, as a society, are sure to learn could very well position that player with a record-breaking 2,633 consecutive games played.

Of course, new training and a deeper understanding of how to rest the body for best performance might lead the baseball world to play major leaguers even less than they do now.

That encapsulates the wonder of the future. We simply don't know. So, for Mr. Thompson to say that no one will ever approach Mr. Ripken's record was a statement that did not account for the knowledge of knowing that we don't know what's next.

Food and Family, see page three

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Photo credits: mlb.tv St. Louis Post-Dispatch