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Cal Ripken Jr. will never forget his final Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 2001 at Seattle’s Safeco Field, which is now known as T-Mobile Park.
Ripken, who spent his entire 21-year career with the Baltimore Orioles, was named the starting third baseman for the American League in the 2001 All-Star Game while Alex Rodriguez was named the starting shortstop.
However, just before the ASG was about to begin, Rodriguez, then playing for the Texas Rangers, offered to switch positions with Ripken so he could salute the longtime Oriole and allow him to play shortstop in the ASG one final time.
While Ripken was one of the best shortstops in baseball in his prime, it appears he wasn’t happy about switching positions with Rodriguez.
“Well, now that you brought it back up, I was kind of pissed at you, to be honest with you,” Ripken said to Rodriguez on Tuesday’s Fox broadcast of the 2023 All-Star Game in Seattle. “… I hadn’t been over there in a while. I got this big old glove on my hand that they made that they called humongous. I go, ‘How am I going to go back over there and turn a double play?'”
Ripken started 2,216 consecutive games at shortstop for the Orioles from July 1982 until he was moved to third base during the 1996 season. From 1997 through 2001, the Hall of Famer played primarily at third base.
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