FREE ESSAY ON THE RIPKEN WAY

THE RIPKEN WAY

The first book I read this summer was a non-fiction piece written by Cal Ripken Sr.,
called the Ripken Way. There are many ways in which mr. Ripken posseses qualitites that
are very human: he was a normal person, just like anybody else, not just an extraordinary
baseball player and manager; he was married to a wife and had four children. He was a
hard worker, and through out the book he has an emphasis on working hard in life in order
to be successful, and lastly, he was a very unique person, in many ways.
First, when most people think of Cal Ripken, they think of one of the all time great
baseball players, and he was that. But, he was also just an ordinary person, with a
normal life. Like most other people, he was married to a wife, and also had four
children. He was just not a ball player, he was a dedicated husband and father that did
the best he could to raise his kids and teach them the correct way to do things, and
teach them the lessons in life. He was a busy man, because of his baseball carear, he had
lots of time taken away from his family as both a baseball player and as a manager. He
took advantage of any time he got to spend time with his children. An example of this was
when he was managing, and ran baseball clinics. He decided to take the difficult task of
not only attending these baseball clinics, but also taking his children so he could be
with them. As busy as he was, he took time out of his extremely busy life to get quality
time with his family, this took much sacrifice, but it's a human traight, like any other
man, not matter what he may be doing.
Secondly, in the book, Cal explains how he brought up his children and enstilled the
correct values inisde them in order to be successful (as well as instructing baseball
players on how to improve their game while simaltaniously teaching life lessons that
apply both on and off the baseball field). An example is his son, Cal Ripken jr., whom
was brought up around the sport of baseball, and that was a huge advantage, but, he
wasn't always the biggest athlete on the team. As a matter of fact, when he was a young
high school student, he had a poor batting average, a weak arm, lacked in some basic
skills, and wasn't too tall either. But, as he was raised by his father, he learned
propper and neccessary life values in order to suceed in whatever he does. If his father
taught him one thing, it would be to work hard and work at whatever your weak at over and
over again (correctly; the right way). Cal had worked hard, the skills he lacked, he
drilled correctly and repeatidly until he had got the skills he needed. He worked out
more, and bulked up, and, if he had any questions, he asked them and got all of his
problems straightened out if anything had confused him. Eventually when he was a senior,
he had the best batting average on the team, was one of the biggest players, and had
developed all the skills he had needed from all of the hard work. 
Lastly, Cal was a unique person, in many ways. He was a loving father and husband, and
also a tough person, who makes mistakes sometimes, like everybody else. He has done
things that many other men would never do. Some things he has done weren't the smartest
things to do, but he felt was the right thing to do. One example that can describe this
is how he reacts to getting hit by a baseball. Everybody knows (whether you're a player
or not) that when you're batting, and a high speed fast ball is pitched at you, and hits
you, it hurts. Cal, however, has a different view; even though he has been hit and has
admitted it's painful, he was just stick to his opinion, that the ball only weighs
five-and-a-quater onces, how much can it hurt? Another display of this optimistic, tough
attitude was on a winter day. His neighborhood was small, and snowplows didn't get to it
that often, but every once in a while when it snowed hard, mr. Ripken would use a tracor
that belonged to some person he used to do work for, and plow. When the tractor stalled,
he did something that he knew shouldn't be done, but it was neccessary to get the tractor
started again, but, it ended up in him getting what appeared to be a serious cut in the
middle of his forhead. Instead of going to the hospital, which his children were driving
him to, he got out of the vehicle at his house, and bandeged himself up and was tough
enough to heal on his own, rather than going to the hospital.
In conlusion, Cal Ripken was a very tough man, and also a very hard worker, which was why
he was so successful. In his book, working hard and not giving up is stressed a lot of
times, because hard work is what got him where he is today. There were man lessons
learned from reading this book, not only for baseball, but for life as well. 
Bibliography
The Ripken Way Cal Ripken