Cal Ripken: "Beltre the best third baseman he's ever seen. Sorry Brooksie."

[BobbyWoontz]

Human Vacuum Cleaner...nuff said. Cal was WRONG!

Brooks came down from a higher league.......'nuff said. Cal was WRONG! And an apology should be forthcoming.

[24fps]

I purposely refrained from posting in this thread while drunk last night. Now that it's morning and I'm only hungover, I can view this a little more objectively.

I think we all were going into this with unrealistic expectations. That is to say, it's the first O's playoff game in 15 years and we've got our guy in the booth! Then when he wasn't a homer and was instead a little more professional, we all got our feelings hurt. I am not excluding myself from this, and in fact I'm explaining how I felt and maybe some of you did too.

I really do believe that Cal decided to err on the side of caution and make the statement so he could be viewed as un biased and objective for the rest of the game. I don't think the two players are as far apart as most people here seem to, but I would give the edge to Brooks.

I think an experienced professional broadcaster (emphasis on experienced) would never have drawn the comparison in the first place. I'm in the camp that believes Brooks is the best ever but that certainly doesn't shield him from being reevaluated as the seasons roll by and new players build their case. We're all already beginning to wonder if Manny Machado might be one of those players. You just don't do it offhandedly, and if you absolutely must then you should ask yourself whether the most important Orioles game in 15 years is the right is the right moment.

To me this is a rookie mistake in judgement. You can build someone up without the need to diminish someone else and it's not that hard. If Cal wants to be really good, IMO he should keep that in mind.

[dscola]

I haven't read every post in this thread so I dn't anybody has said what I feel. I just think it was completely unnecessary. It came out of left field. You just don't say anyting as a broadcaster, be it Cal or anyone else, that would alienate half of the listening and viewing audience. It would have different if he was asked or if he had said, "Beltre is the best 3rd baseman n the game today. He's up there with Brooks in my opinion."

You could hear the other broadcaters trying to get him to backtrack a little but he stayed with it. It's 1 thing to try and be impartial. It's another to fake impartiality.

[wompfump]

I don't get what the big deal is.

And in terms of just pure fielding, I find it totally possible that Beltre is better than Brooks was. The difference is that the other 3B back when Brooks played were so much worse than Brooks defensively.

I don't see a thread anywhere on how John Smoltz said that Mark Reynolds is a great fielder in general. Isn't that an even worse statement?

[BmoreMatt]

I think an experienced professional broadcaster (emphasis on experienced) would never have drawn the comparison in the first place. I'm in the camp that believes Brooks is the best ever but that certainly doesn't shield him from being reevaluated as the seasons roll by and new players build their case. We're all already beginning to wonder if Manny Machado might be one of those players. You just don't do it offhandedly, and if you absolutely must then you should ask yourself whether the most important Orioles game in 15 years is the right is the right moment.

To me this is a rookie mistake in judgement. You can build someone up without the need to diminish someone else and it's not that hard. If Cal wants to be really good, IMO he should keep that in mind.

Hard to argue with this. I think he could and should have approached the situation differently. Am I making assumptions and maybe even excuses for Cal because of how much I enjoyed watching him play the game? Probably.

[FR500]

Brooks came down from a higher league.......'nuff said. Cal was WRONG! And an apology should be forthcoming.

E = Ripken. Wow. Really Cal, really? Were you not at Brooksie's ceremony last week... or around for the All-Century Team, or on the face of the planet between 1955 - today? Really? 16 GG vs 3? Really Cal?!

Bill has his infamous baseball card.... Cal has this most bizarre statement.

Again, E = Ripken. A sad day in Aberdeen and throughout the entire baseball world.

(But hey, the Os won!)

[zkeller97]

This guy is one of the best Orioles players ever, and is an all time great who supports the Baltimore Orioles and would do anything for them, and people are getting mad at him because he said another player was better than somebody who played on the Orioles?

[El Gordo]

I realize that Cal is just pulling stuff out of his butt to fill air time as a color guy, something he is new to, and not all that good at. But Brooks is the most popular Oriole all time, just had a ststue dedicated to him less than a week ago, and is widely regarded as the best defensive 3B of all time. How ridiculous would it have been for Cal to have said Elvis Andrus, an excellent fielding SS, is as good as Ozzie Smith? When Cal was born in 1960, Brooks had already played 6 seasons and saved 17 runs that year with his glove. When Cal was 8, Brooks had his best year saving 33 runs with his glove. Cal was hardly old enough to evaluate Brooks in his prime. Brooks averaged 14 RS per season, for 23 years. Beltre an excellent 3B, has averaged 8 RS per, over 15 seasons. His best year was 27 RS. Brooks had one season at 33 RS one at 32, and a total of 13 seasons of 15 RS or more. Betre has 3 seasons of 15 RS or more over 15. Brooks was clearly better, no matter what Cal remembers seeing when he was 8.

[Frobby]

The reaction to this comment made me wonder, being too young to have seen Brooks play, so I checked out Baseball Reference to see how Brooks and Beltre stack up. Honestly, Beltre's numbers through his fifteen seasons have been remarkably comparable to Brooks equivalent years:

Beltre (ages 19-33): 2115 games, 8697 PA, 61.0 WAR, and 22.1 dWAR.

Brooks (same ages): 2034 games, 8421 PA, 55.9 WAR, and 26.5 dWAR.

Beltre will never have the legend that Brooks does, and it remains to see if he can keep up this production for another seven years. But it looks to me that this wasn't necessarily the blasphemy that some make it out to be.

First of all, I see no reason to be angry at Cal for expressing his honest opinion. Beltre made an excellent play right before Cal made this comment. It was intended as the highest possible compliment to Beltre, not a shot at Brooks. There's no reason to be mad about it.

That said, in my opinion, Cal is pretty far off base. Brooks didn't win 16 Gold Gloves by accident, or merely because of his reputation (though perhaps a few of them were due to his reputation).

Total Zone Rating at 3B:

Brooks Robinson 293

Buddy Bell 167

Clete Boyer 162

Robin Ventura 154

Scott Rolen 150

Craig Nettles 134

Gary Gaetti 132

Mike Schmidt 129

Adrian Beltre 121

You can argue about the exact order of nos. 2-9 on that list. What you can't argue is that Brooks Robinson is head and shoulders above everybody else. Undertstand, Brooks's TZR is not only the best at 3B by a wide margin, it's the best at any position by a wide margin. The next three are Andruw Jones (242), Mark Belanger (241), and Ozzie Smith (239). Again, they are close to each other -- but nowhere close to Brooks.

dWAR sees things a little differently in terms of Brooks's value compared to the great shortstops, but dWAR also has Brooks far ahead of the next best 3B, Buddy Bell (38.8 to 23.0).

For me, if you want to make an argument that Beltre is the second nest 3B of all time, it's supportable. Better than Brooks? It's not that close.

[Mark70Z]

This is my first post... I would have loved it to be in another "O's WIN" type post, but what Cal stated, in my opinion, was just wrong. For all you younger folks, sorry, but if you ever had the opportunity to see Brooksie play consisentenly the commment Cal made would make you extremely disappointed in Cal. Even if the statement was true, which is far from the truth, it didn’t need to be stated nor should it have been said. I’m like some that stated they’ve seen many great third baseman of the game play, Schmidt, Nettles, Boyer brothers, Santo etc. and none compare to Brooksie. He was and is the greatest ever; I really don’t mind the comparisons, but to state Beltre is better is laughable.

[The Rick]

I personally feel that Cal was saying something he knew was probably a tad off, that would convince viewers that he was being un-biased. I think this did the trick for sure. I have to say though, for all the crazy threads at times, this one probably takes the cake for me. "Cal is dead to me"... really? C'mon. That's just one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.

[The Wedge]

I personally feel that Cal was saying something he knew was probably a tad off, that would convince viewers that he was being un-biased. I think this did the trick for sure. I have to say though, for all the crazy threads at times, this one probably takes the cake for me. "Cal is dead to me"... really? C'mon. That's just one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.

Emotions can run just as crazily high after a big win as they do after a devastating loss.

[FR500]

This is my first post... I would have loved it to be in another "O's WIN" type post, but what Cal stated, in my opinion, was just wrong. For all you younger folks, sorry, but if you ever had the opportunity to see Brooksie play consisentenly the commment Cal made would make you extremely disappointed in Cal. Even if the statement was true, which is far from the truth, it didn’t need to be stated nor should it have been said. I’m like some that stated they’ve seen many great third baseman of the game play, Schmidt, Nettles, Boyer brothers, Santo etc. and none compare to Brooksie. He was and is the greatest ever; I really don’t mind the comparisons, but to state Beltre is better is laughable.

Agree... I guess it just shows that Cal is merely human.... thank goodness Brooksie isn't.

Really Cal?!???????????????????????????

[The Rick]

Emotions can run just as crazily high after a big win as they do after a devastating loss.

I get it, I do. But some of these same folks who were going ape about this last night, are on here again defending it this morning. But it's all good, to each their own. I thought Cal was phenomenal in the booth tonight. Hopefully Billy was taking notes and can learn a thing or two about not overly engaging in hyperbole and feeling dead air. It helped he had a third member in the booth in Smoltz, but he was great I thought.

[olehippi]

I can definitely understand the shock and disappointment from Baltimore fans over Cal's statement. I forgive him because I don't think it was what it seemed. What we have to remember is that Cal was in his early to mid teens and he saw Brook's playing as his career was coming to an end, and the skills almost gone. What Cal saw then wasn't what many of us had seen during Robinson's career. And Cal did say "the best 'Ive' ever seen."