DATE: Sunday, May 4, 1997                   TAG: 9704240563

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY TIM WARREN 

                                            LENGTH:   78 lines

CAL RIPKEN WRITES WITH HUMILITY - JUST LIKE HE LIVES

THE ONLY WAY I KNOW

CAL RIPKEN JR. AND MARK BRYANT

Viking. 327 pp. $22.95.

You wouldn't expect Cal Ripken Jr.'s autobiography to be a kiss-and-tell book, and it isn't. There's no mention of Baseball Annies, and ballplayers chasing women (or vice versa); nor is this a place for self-promotion or the settling of some scores. Rather, The Only Way I Know is much like the man himself: earnest, self-effacing, aware of how he is perceived.

``I think I am a good person - I think most people are - and I try to do what I believe is right, because I am sensitive to what people think of me,'' he writes. ``I know that a thousand hours of politeness can be wiped out by two seconds of doing bad. I watch what I do.''

That includes this book, which is basically a straight-ahead accounting of his life in baseball. As a book about the sport, and about one person who has dedicated all but a few of his 36 years to it, it's both readable and informative - you get a real sense of the hard work that Ripken, or for that matter any major-league player of even modest achievement, has put in during his career.

But traits that may be admirable in a person and a ballplayer can also make a book such as this rather plodding. Ripken doesn't criticize any of his managers or teammates. There's also more seaon-by-season detail than the casual fan would want to know.

Of course, Ripken is best known as the Baltimore Orioles shortshop who in September 1995 broke Lou Gehrig's record of 2130 consecutive games played (this year, Ripken has shifted to third base). It was an achievement of extraordinary perseverance, especially welcome because it came the year after yet another baseball strike had alienated many fans. Here was a guy who simply wanted to play the game.

He also seemed to have remembered the people in the seats who bought tickets to watch him play. Ripken writes:

``I don't really understand why it means so much to people to have a name signed on a piece of paper, but autographing is part of baseball, and there's a flavor to it and it belongs in the game. I don't fight it at all. I accept it, and I really enjoy it. I love the banter, and when a kid's face lights up with joy, this makes the whole thing go.''

As is evident in this book, the two most important things in Ripken's life are baseball and family, probably because they were seldom separated. His father - a blunt, hard-nosed type whom Cal Jr. obviously worships - was a longtime member of the Orioles organization as a minor-league coach and manager, and then a coach and manager with the Baltimore team.

Some of the best parts of the book describe the peripatetic life of a baseball family, constantly on the move, changing schools every year while Dad is off in North Carolina or Florida or wherever. Such a life either pulls families apart or brings them together, and in the case of the Ripkens it engendered a fierce loyalty toward one another.

It also introduced young Cal early to the sport itself, and to what he calls the ``Oriole Way,'' of which his father was one of the primary teachers. The Orioles taught fundamental, intelligent baseball. Ripken writes that one of his father's favorite sayings was ``Do two million little things right and the big things take care of themselves.''

Ripken perhaps learned that approach better than anyone, and his pain is evident when he writes about today's major leaguers.

In perhaps his most pointed criticism, he writes of ``telltale indications that really make you wonder about the craft of the game, fundamental failures like messed-up rundowns and outfielders missing the cutoff man (a daily occurrence).'' Then, being Cal Ripken, he catches himself and admits, ``I don't want to sound like I know everything in this area, because I don't.''

This people-are-watching-me sensibility tends to mute the impact of The Only Way I Know, but at the same time it's refreshing not to put up with a lot of self-aggrandizement and recriminations. MEMO: Tim Warren, former book editor for The Baltimore Sun, is a writer

who lives in Silver Spring, Md. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

FILE

Cal Ripken

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