A record that the baseball world viewed as unbreakable almost stayed intact because of a brawl on June 6, 1993 at Camden Yards – two years and three months before Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131^st consecutive game to pass Lou Gehrig.

The delay lasted 20 minutes after benches and bullpens emptied. Orioles starter Mike Mussina hit Bill Haselman after the Mariners catcher homered earlier in the day, but the trouble really began when Seattle starter Chris Bosio threw behind Mark McLemore and Harold Reynolds. Plate umpire Durwood Merrill didn’t issue any warnings.

Tempers already were getting hot when Mussina drilled Haselman on the shoulder. Catcher Jeff Tackett chased Haselman, trying to get to him before he reached the mound. Tackett was credited with the tackle, which created a dogpile. Bosio fractured his collarbone for a second time. Bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks squared off against Tino Martinez. It was bedlam.

Seven players were ejected and suspended: Haselman, Bosio, Norm Charlton and Mackey Sasser from the Mariners, and Alan Mills, David Segui and Rick Sutcliffe from the Orioles. Mussina was spared, which led to Seattle manager Lou Piniella being tossed.

Tackett suffered a black eye and required stitches to close a gash on his cheek. Reliever Mark Williamson had a swollen, bloody nose after being slammed to the ground.

Less noticeable was the knee injury to Ripken that almost altered the course of baseball history.

“That was probably the closest,” he said yesterday of his streak ending.

“There was some back and forth, but I remember running in to help Mussina and it looked like he was OK, so I turned my attention to the whole Seattle Mariners dugout, and as I turned, my foot slipped in the grass a little bit and I got hit by about 2,000 pounds of people and I end up on the bottom. I heard something pop in my right knee.

“Once the adrenaline started to wear off, you start to feel the pain. But I felt the pain the next morning. I woke up and I couldn’t put my foot on the ground, and I was so concerned that I actually called my parents. I called mom and said, ‘Mom, I hurt myself in the brawl, don’t know what it’s gonna be like, but I might not be able to play tonight.’ The cool part about it was, they lived 45 minutes away exactly from my house, and in 45 minutes exactly they were knocking on my door. So they stayed with me for a while, I walked around, I worked it out, and then came back under the tunnel and I tested it where nobody could see me limping around, and I said I could play.

“Baseball sometimes will test you immediately, and the first play I got was a two-hopper in the hole where I had to catch the ball and then plant my injured leg to make a throw to first base, and I wasn’t sure it was gonna hold. And I planted it and it held. It was a nagging injury after that.”

The Orioles signed Haselman as a free agent in December 2003, but they released him in March and he retired. Baltimore media tried to ask him in spring training about the brawl, but he wasn’t interested in revisiting it. He made that real clear.

Ripken seemed to be indestructible, but he went through a more serious health crisis in 1997, playing with a herniated disc in his back that was diagnosed in July.

“That was after the record was broken, and I say that was probably the most selfish that I felt in my career. Sometimes I thought unfairly I was called selfish cause I wanted to play,” he said.

“The doctor told me that I would be out six weeks. That was confirmed and all that stuff. But we were good, and when you endure a rebuilding process and you endure the pain of that to get to the point where you’re good, you don’t want to miss out on good. And so I said, ‘If I can play, if I can endure the pain, would I do any permanent damage to myself?’ The doctor said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ And that was the hardest thing to get through.”

“The Streak,” to use its proper name, has come to define Ripken but should only be part of his story. It’s a big part, of course. It’s the lede. But he was a Rookie of the Year, two-time Most Valuable Player, 19-time All-Star, recipient of eight Silver Slugger Awards and two Gold Gloves. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007.

“I don’t look at it that way,” Ripken said. “Some people say, ‘Is it fair to you that you’re remembered for the streak?’ And I’m going, I think I answered it in front of some of you 30 years ago. If you’re remembered at all, that’s pretty good. And your career is what your career is. I don’t worry about how it’s judged.

“I’m proud of being able to play all those years, I’m proud of the accomplishments that I had. I wish that I had gotten a chance to play in a few more World Series. We’re talking about this great feeling that happened here 30 years ago, me catching the last out of the World Series was the best feeling you’ll ever feel, and I would have liked to feel that a couple more times.”

The record’s impact became more apparent to Ripken as he grew older.

“For a while I refused to kind of learn more about Lou Gehrig because I thought maybe you become obsessed with Lou and then that would … I just wanted to keep doing what I was doing,” he said.

“I know after it’s all over you kind of look back and it seems a greater accomplishment than when you’re doing it. I still think somebody else can do it. And I would welcome that because I think there’s a principle of going out and playing and I think that would bring a tribute to the game.”

Ripken was known to analyze everything when he played, saying yesterday that he would have fit perfectly in this data-driven era. Sometimes to his own detriment, he admitted.

Naturally, he’s tried to figure out the meaning behind his streak.

“I just thought it was the right approach, and it was the approach that Dad said, ‘Come to the ballpark ready to play. If the manager writes your name in the lineup, then you play. It’s that simple,’” Ripken said.

“In order to do that, you had to focus on one day at a time, and you didn’t allow yourself to really think about the meaning. But since I’ve retired and I’ve heard different stories, I’ve been amazed that people have their own streaks in whatever they’re doing in their lives. I mean, I can’t tell you how many kids tell you they have perfect attendance in high school or perfect attendance all the way through school because of me. And I was wondering maybe the parents might have brainwashed their kid into believing that, and I didn’t want to tell them that I missed a few days of school.

“Just hearing the importance of showing up for something you love, I think that’s how people related to the streak. I think that’s cool.”

Gunnar Henderson was born in 2001, Ripken’s final season before retirement. He’s learned his history, since he wasn’t around to witness it.

“Now that I’m in the game, how incredible it is, how many games that is in a row,” Henderson said. “You start getting into 40, 50, 60 games played in a row and it’s like, golly, he did this for, I don’t even know how many years it totaled up to be. But it’s a lot of games.”

Even though he played through the pain, Ripken managed to avoid the kind of injury that definitely would have forced him to sit. Nick Markakis missed the 2012 playoffs because a CC Sabathia pitch smashed his left thumb in September. Look no further than the 2025 season, with Colton Cowser diving into first base and fracturing his thumb, Adley Rutschman straining both obliques, Maverick Handley sustaining a concussion and wrist injury on the same home plate collision.

Henderson stayed back at the spring training complex because of an intercostal strain. He, too, is a victim.

“I guess there’s some luck that comes with it, and there’s also just the mental kind of attitude of, even if something’s kind of bugging you a little bit, I’m gonna play through it,” Henderson said. “I feel like there’s some of that and probably a little bit of luck, but I’m sure it’s mainly just playing through some things.”

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