It’s Best To Keep Off Cal As Ripken Closes In On Mark, Pitchers In Brushback Dilemma

Roger Clemens was nervous and Dennis Eckersley is apprehensive. Randy Johnson and Mark Langston aren’t worried - yet.

Here’s the dilemma a lot of hard throwers are facing: With Cal Ripken closing in on one of baseball’s most hallowed records, how close can you pitch him?

“I’d pitch him inside, but you don’t want to drill him,” Eckersley said. “When you’re out there, you don’t want to think about it - but I’m sure it’s there in the back of your mind. It has to be.

“Especially with a retaliation situation. What if somebody drills our shortstop? You can’t drill him,” the Oakland reliever said.

Clemens got into a brushback duel with the California Angels this week. But the Boston ace predicted no pitcher would come anywhere close to hitting Ripken and ending his consecutive games streak just short of Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130.

“I think within 10 days, you’re going to see a lot of balls middle-away. I don’t think they’re going to even attempt to come in,” he said. “I would be real surprised if he sees anything inside right now.

“I’m glad my start is out of the way. I mean, if he was on my mind three starts ago, then these pitchers who are facing him now have got to have a great deal of sense of that as long as it’s close,” Clemens said.

Ripken is scheduled to break Gehrig’s mark on Sept. 6 in Baltimore against the Angels. Between now and then, he will face California, Oakland and Seattle.

Ripken has been hit by a pitch twice this season. He’s been hit 45 times during his career, but only once did it knock him out of the lineup. In May 1982, less than four weeks before the streak began, he was beaned by Mike Moore and missed one game.

“I’ve noticed that everyone else is starting to think about this injury thing, and the more questions come up about pitchers pitching inside,” Ripken said Thursday before playing against the Angels in game No. 2,119. “I’m the last person to think about that, and I would hope that the pitchers on the mound and the people playing the game are the last people thinking about it.

“I mean, in the heat of the game or the heat of the moment, if it’s a tie game in the seventh inning and you need to get out of that jam - and we had Randy Johnson pitching against us the other night - I guarantee you that doesn’t go through Randy Johnson’s mind or Roger Clemens’ mind.”

Well, maybe not Johnson’s, anyway.

Johnson, the most intimidating pitcher in baseball, beaned Jim Leyritz of the Yankees earlier this season. But the Seattle strikeout king said he wasn’t concerned about a recurrence when he faced Ripken a few days ago.

“No. It never crossed my mind,” he said. “Obviously, I wouldn’t want to be the person who injured him being so close. But I’m not going to groove a ball right over the middle of the plate. I don’t think he’d want that.

“If I hit him, I hit him,” he said.

Langston sees it the same way.

“That’s part of the game and Cal knows that’s part of the game,” the California left-hander said. “I mean, there’s obviously no way that anybody’s intending to hit him, especially at this stage of the situation. But in baseball, sometimes that happens.”

Angels reliever Lee Smith, who played with Ripken last season on the Orioles, began 1995 with a streak of 434 consecutive innings without hitting a batter. He’s hit one this year.

“Oh yeah, I’m not going to be able to sleep until he breaks the record,” Lee joked. “I probably won’t get a wink of sleep the rest of this time until Sept. 6, worrying that I don’t hit Mr. Cal Ripken.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me. That’s between him and Gehrig,” he added. “But I don’t think that me throwing at 82 mph and hitting Cal Ripken is going to put him out.” Of course, Ripken grinned, he’d be glad to hear that pitchers plan to just put the ball over the middle of the plate.

“It would be nice if they all made a pledge and promised not to go inside,” he said.