Reading Cal Ripken, Jr's Book

"Get in the Game" by Cal Ripken, Jr. with Donald T. Phillips.

I've always been a fan of Cal's and recommend his book.

An interesting excerpt:

p. 91 Personal Accountability

During my three-error season, I closely analyzed each of the errors right after they occurred. The Cecil Fielder grounder called for caution. It called for plenty of time. I don't know if I could have anticipated the bad hop. Maybe if I'd picked it up a little crisper, instead of fumbling for it, I could have thrown him out. I've caught bad hops before, every shortstop has. Or maybe it wasn't my fault after all. Perhaps I should have blamed the infield at Tiger Stadium. It's always been a minefield out there.

On the George Brett play, I really believe the only chance I had to get him ut was to take the risk and go for it. But could I have done something slightly different to make that play? What about moving my glove out a little farther? No, I don't think so. Maybe, after the game, I should have gone in and argued with the official scorer. Maybe it was his fault.

And what happened with Mickey Tettleton? I got surprised that he wasn't yet at first base. But maybe I could have waited a moment for him to get there. Maybe I could have thrown the ball at the bag, rather than straight at him. On the other hand, if Mickey played first base more often, he would have gotten there faster. Was it his fault?

In the end, I couldn't blame the infield at Tiger Stadium. I knew it was unpredictable. I didn't blame the official scorer. I knew the risk involved when I decided to go for that ball in the hole. And I wouldn't blame Mickey Tettleton. He was my teammate. It wasn't the infield, it wasn't the official scorer, and it wasn't my teammate. It was me. I made those errors. and I had to learn from them, because each of those situations would probably crop up again.

Regardless of the profession in which you are engaged, you can usually find somebody to blame for your failures. In baseball, it's particularly easy to locate a villain. All you have to do is look for the guys dressed in blue...

snip

Cal goes on to describe his baseball stories with being thrown out by umpires and what he learned from it. This is a great book all around and I highly recommend it. I'm still waiting for my autographed copy lol ;-)