Rex Hudler pestered plate umpire Larry Barnett for a game-used baseball, one with the orange laces and quantity “8” stamp to commemorate Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive video games document in Camden Yards on Sept. 6, 1995, to no avail.
“He said, ‘No way, you’re gonna have to catch a third out or get a foul ball,’ ” mentioned Hudler, the Kansas Metropolis Royals broadcaster who performed second base for the Angels the evening Ripken broke Gehrig’s document. “ ‘They’re all numbered and counted, and you can’t have one.’ ”
Hudler thought he had one when Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro despatched a flare into shallow right-center discipline with two outs within the backside of the third inning, however Angels proper fielder Tim Salmon known as him off and made the catch.
“We’re running into the dugout, and I’m yelling at him, ‘What are you doing? That was my ball!’ ” Hudler mentioned. “And King Fish had this big grin on his face, he kept running and said, ‘Haha Hud, you’ll get one.’ ”
When the sport turned official after the highest of the fifth, and Ripken handed the Iron Man by taking part in in his 2,131st consecutive recreation, Hudler took the sphere and watched as Ripken took an iconic victory lap across the stadium, high-fiving followers, hugging teammates and delaying the sport for 22 minutes, 15 seconds.
Ripken shook arms with each participant within the Angels dugout — ”And when does that occur?” he mentioned on a Corridor-of-Fame podcast — and shared a heat embrace with Angels hitting coach and Corridor-of-Famer Rod Carew.
Rex Hudler, above throughout a recreation in opposition to the Orioles in 1996, performed three seasons for the Angels.
(Mark J. Terrill / Related Press)
“I told him, ‘You’ve been great for all these years and very consistent in what you’ve done, and one day I’ll see you in the Hall of Fame,’ ” Carew mentioned. “What a record that was, to be healthy for that long.”
Hudler was standing at his second-base spot when Ripken began his lap, however by the point Ripken returned to his dugout and was greeted by his household, Hudler was standing on the pitcher’s mound.
“I had been in this little dream for however long it took him to go around the stadium, wandering, watching him, following him, just enamored by what he was doing, and the next thing I know, I’m on the mound,” Hudler mentioned. “I quietly turned and walked back to my position.”
When the sport lastly resumed, the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs, and up stepped Ripken, who hit a two-run homer off Angels pitcher Shawn Boskie within the fourth inning.
“Palmeiro was on second base and he said, ‘Hud, it’s only fitting, look who’s coming up, the baseball gods are here,’ ” Hudler mentioned.
Solely this time, the gods smiled on Hudler, who was truly drafted forward of Ripken in 1978 — Hudler was a first-round choose of the New York Yankees and Ripken a second-round choose of the Orioles — however spent his whole 13-year big-league profession as a utility man, whereas Ripken turned a Corridor-of-Famer.
“I went back to my position and said, ‘God, have him hit it to me, please,’ and Cal flared the first pitch over my head toward right-center,” Hudler mentioned. “It was kind of a loopy liner, and I remember running, looking up at the ball, and it was in slow motion. I had never fielded a ball in my 21-year career that was in slow motion.
“As I’m running, I’m thinking, ‘That’s a six-carat diamond,’ it looked like a jewel, and I told myself, ‘Hud, you’re gonna break your neck for this. You can’t let this ball drop.’ My adrenaline and speed carried me under it, and when I caught it on the run, I shook my arm three times in disbelief. God answered my prayer on the field! It was unbelievable.”
Hudler sprinted off the sphere, ignoring teammates eager to high-five him within the dugout for saving two runs, and into the visiting clubhouse, the place he stashed the ball in his locker for safekeeping.
President Invoice Clinton is handed an autographed ball by Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., left, as they meet on the Orioles’ clubhouse at Camden Yards on Sept. 6, 1995, previous to the sport with the Angels. Wanting on at proper are the president’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore.
(Wilfredo Lee / Related Press)
“I secured my precious gem,” Hudler mentioned. “I have never caught a ball more valuable than that.”
Ripken, it turned out, was a present that stored on giving. After the Angels’ 4-2 loss, Hudler was chatting with writers when an Orioles clubhouse attendant interrupted the scrum to current Hudler a shiny black Ripken bat signed with the message:
“To Hud, we go a long way back, you going ahead of me in the draft and all, but now, I feel like you feel when you strike out with the bases loaded: visibly shaken! All my best, Cal Ripken Jr., Sept. 6, 1995.”
Hudler was floored. He had requested Ripken for an autographed bat that Might, when the Orioles have been in Anaheim, and he was shocked one didn’t arrive when the Angels have been in Baltimore in early June and the Orioles have been in Anaheim once more in late-August.
“I was speechless, I didn’t know what to say,” the at all times loquacious Hudler mentioned. “Cal signed a bat for me that night. It was so classy. How could he think of me?”
The bat and the ball he caught to finish the fifth inning — Hudler obtained the ball signed two years later — are featured in a particular Cal Ripken shrine within the man-cave of Hudler’s Kansas Metropolis residence.
And to suppose, this is able to not have been attainable had a piece stoppage not delayed the beginning of the 1995 season till late April and decreased the season to 144 video games, putting the Angels, with no Orioles rainouts, in Baltimore when Ripken tied and broke Gehrig’s document.
Tim Salmon, above batting over the past recreation of the common season in 1995, was a part of an Angels crew that final 29 of its final 43 video games and misplaced a one-game playoff for the AL West to the Seattle Mariners.
(J.D. Cuban / Getty Photographs)
“I looked at the schedule in April, and a light went off in my brain that these would be historical games of great magnitude,” Hudler mentioned. “I told our old traveling secretary, Frank Sims, that I needed three extra rooms in Baltimore for Sept. 4-6, and he goes, ‘Kid, whattaya mean? That’s so far away.’
“I kind of played it off. I didn’t want to tell him why. Then a week before we went to Baltimore, Frank asked me if I wanted to sell any of those rooms because there were no rooms available. I said, ‘Heck no!’ Three of my best friends who I grew up with in Fresno came out with their wives. Great memories for them, too.”
As cool because it was to be a part of Ripken’s historic evening, it was bittersweet for the Angels, who have been in the course of an epic collapse wherein they misplaced 29 of their final 43 video games and blew an 11-game American League West lead, becoming a member of the 1978 Purple Sox, 1969 Cubs, 1964 Phillies and 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers in baseball infamy.
Their 5-3 win over the Orioles within the Sept. 4 sequence opener snapped a nine-game dropping streak. The Angels misplaced 9 straight once more from Sept. 13-23 to fall two video games behind the Seattle Mariners.
They rallied to win their final 5 regular-season video games to drive a one-game playoff for the division, however they have been crushed by the Mariners and then-ace Randy Johnson 9-1 in that recreation.
“That was a painful swoon, and it cost us the division, but to be part of that Ripken celebration when your team was struggling so badly took the pain away,” Hudler mentioned. “I was honored to play in those games, because I’m sure one of those lineup cards is in Cooperstown, and that’s the only way I ever got into the Hall of Fame.”
This story initially appeared in “Memories and Dreams,” the official journal of the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame and Museum. For extra tales like this about legendary heroes of the sport, subscribe to “Memories and Dreams” by becoming a member of the Museum’s membership program at www.baseballhall.org/be a part of.
