david: this is my kitchen table and it's also my filing system. over much of the past three

decades i've been an investor. the highest calling of mankind i've often thought of is private equity and then i started interviewing. i've learned from doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. >> i asked him how much he wanted, i said 250. i didn't negotiate and i did no due diligence. david: i have something i would like to sell. and how they stay there. you don't feel inadequate being only the second richest person in the world, right? one of the greatest baseball players ever is cal ripken. he set a record for playing in 2632 consecutive games. over 17 years. he was an all-star 19 times. a member of the hall of fame, twice most valuable player in the american league and also once a world series champion. i had a chance to sit down with him recently to talk about his current life working with and for the baltimore orioles. a team that he made very famous.

so it was said in baseball that the unbreakable record was lou gehrig's record of playing in 2130 games consecutively. nobody thought that could ever be broken. you broke it, playing in 2632 games consecutively over 17 years. why did you do that? [applause] did you ever think of maybe taking a day off would be a good thing? cal: you are not going to ask me what my secret was, right? david: i will get to that. cal: i don't know if i have one. i love the game a lot. your everyday player was defined in those years as playing every game, and it was an honor to be thought of and counted on each and every day, by your teammates. so i had my dad who was also a coach, when i first came in. probably for the first 11 or 12 years of my career. and i think the real reason i played is i couldn't come into a ballpark and say you have turf

toe and say that i need to miss a game or two. i couldn't face my dad, let alone the manager of the team. david: i've been working for many years and i have not done 17 years consecutively every day. i get headaches someday, i don't feel good. you never had a headache, a cold? nothing happened? cal: yes. all of those things. david: you played through it. cal: you learn to play through different things and you find out quickly that i can still compete and play even though i might be less than 100%. david: baseball was called the national pastime for the longest time but obviously other sports have taken attention away from baseball. basketball and football, for example. do you still feel that americans have a certain passion for baseball that was similar to what they had 20, 30, 40 years ago? or do you think it has changed a lot? cal: i think there is a deep love for baseball still in the country. i see it at the ripken baseball was a kids business. it is experiential when you play

tournaments. we teach and those sorts of things. you can witness it right in front of you that the kids feel the same way about baseball that we did. i think what has happened in sports overall that there is specialization that happens earlier in the sport. you're not playing baseball, basketball and football at the same time. you are specializing early on. there's a lot less kids playing baseball, but the ones who are are actually playing more of it because they play spring, summer and fall. david: lots of pitchers these days have elbow problems and get a surgery called tommy john surgery and have to take a year and a half before they can play again. why are there so many pitchers that have this problem? they didn't have those problems when you were playing. is it because they are playing so young and throwing so many different kind of pitches that hurt the elbow? cal: some of that is true because tommy john surgery has

come down to high school and sometimes kids younger than that. i think some parents feel like just keep throwing and if it breaks, we can always fix it and you will come back throwing harder than you did before. i think that is the wrong way to look at it. i think in the big leagues with all of the analytics, i think pitchers are chasing velocity. there is more training to get your arm stronger to throw the ball harder. they are chasing movement. two things that happen. you throw a fastball, you get behind the baseball but when you try and make it move with the same power, you are torquing your elbow or your wrist right at the end to make it move. all of the pressure goes right here. i think a lot of chasing speed and movement, the combination of those is causing it. david: when a golfer is lining up a putt on a tournament, everybody has to be quiet. nobody is throwing anything at

his head. why does he need to have so much quiet but if somebody is throwing a ball at your head 100 miles an hour, they can scream and yell. doesn't that seem ass backwards? cal: yes. it is interesting. when you play in front of a packed house, it's just noise. you don't hear the individual things. in new york, i think fans felt like they were part of the game. so they were trying to get inside your head and screaming things that you and playing mind games. if you beat them and did really well, they would say all right, see you tomorrow. that was part of it. the boston fans were a little different. they were more personal. if you beat them they would hold it against you for life. david: you can challenge a call and they go to new york and watch it on video. and they make a decision. do you think that's good or bad? cal: i like it. one play can turn the whole outcome of the game and they have the technology to do it now and i think what you are going to see in the next couple of years is some form of the robotic strike zone.

they are testing it in the minor leagues. when a challenge system or every third game, they have something in the ear of the umpire and a robot calls the game based on the results of the play and just tells the guy what to do. they are testing those things out. i think the challenge system might be good because a key pitch in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and it's called a ball or a strike, a ball turns it in favor of the team with the bases loaded and a strike gets them out of it. david: professional athletes are idealized. it's hard to believe this, but they are liked more than politicians. athletes are really well-liked and admired. but then when you finish your career, you have a whole different life. you retired at what age, 41? cal: 41. david: you played 22 years -- cal: 21. david: you played 21 years in the major leagues and you retired at an age that is old for professional athletes but young for someone in private equity or something like that.

when you retired at that age, did you say what i my going to do with the rest of my life? what did you decide to do? for the remaining 10 or next 20 years? cal: if you save your money pretty well, then you have choices. you can decide to learn how to play golf like a lot of people do and retire early. david: are you a golfer? cal: i play a little bit, but no. i could be pretty good. david: you should try miniature golf, that's what i do. cal: i looked at it as you kind of get bored. how can you do that? i looked at it as a second chance, a career opportunity. i wanted to learn business. we bought minor league teams. it was a comfortable business model, to learn business that way. that was fun. at first it felt like i spotted everyone else 20 years ahead of me. i'm 41, but i seem like i'm 21 in the business world. you find that a lot of things you learned along the way in baseball can apply to your work

ethic and how you go about doing things, preparation, all of that kind of stuff. that all applies to what you are doing now. david: now that you are an owner of the baltimore orioles, how do you feel about these high-priced contracts the players are getting? it used to be a player wanted higher priced contracts. you are an owner, how do you look at that? differently? cal: slightly. i try to think what are the other intangible values you can offer a player besides the bottom line dollars are so big now that you can make a case for saying how much. it's about ego and breaking the bank and agents wanting to continue to make it go up. for the other people that come through. but my situation was, i wanted to play in one place, i wanted to have control of playing in

one place. if we get to a point where we are trying to convince some of our players to stay, you want to tell them all of the values associated with derek jeter playing his whole career in a pinstripe uniform, me playing my whole career in the orioles. what does that mean for you in the bigger picture? hopefully they will value some of that, but it is going to be a competitive landscape where we will have to -- david: baltimore is a smaller city compared to somewhere like new york or los angeles. is that a problem that you are in a smaller city for major league baseball? cal: i think overall, i never liked the idea because you were a small market team, you couldn't compete. because i think competition is in your knowledge. you are drafting, you get to sign players. you get to develop players. it is not all free agency that is happening. but if you are a big market team

and you make a mistake and judgment on a player, you can throw more money at your mistakes. when you are a smaller market team, you have to be better at your baseball decisions. i looked at myself as a sportsman. maybe the value of the entertainment was in the collective where you are playing together as a team and you win and that's cool. then of all the sudden it seems to step over to a lot of players think that they are entertainers now.

david: during his 21 year career spent entirely with the baltimore orioles, cal ripken jr. broke nearly every team record. he's the orioles franchise leader in hits, runs, rbis, homeruns and games played. the record that earned him the name iron man isn't just an orioles record but the all-time consecutive games played record in mlb history. just how unbreakable is this record? the record was held unbroken for over 40 years before ripken even joined the major leagues in 1981. the men who held it, new york yankees legend lou gehrig. he joins the new york yankees in 1923 at age 19. he didn't gain a permanent old until 1925 when his sakgan. over the course of the next 14 seasons, he would help the yankees win six world series titles alongside other yankees legends including babe ruth and later joe dimaggio. in august 1933, during the course of this historic yankees run, derek broke the previous record of 1307 held by former yankee teammate everett scott. he would shatter this record, playing every game until he was forced to end his streak due to health concerns at a staggering 2130 games. a few weeks later, he was diagnosed with als and was honored at yankee stadium on

july 14, 1939 when he officially retired from baseball. lou: today, i consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. david: for the next 42 years, no player can close the challenging lou gehrig's record. but then, in 1981, cal ripken jr. joins the baltimore orioles and began his campaign to break the unbreakable record. he took the mlb by storm,

winning rookie of the year in 1982 and when is iron maiden streak began and following up the next season by winning american league m.v.p. and the 1983 world series. over the course of his career, he would rack up 19 all-star appearances, two golden gloves and a second american league m.v.p. in 1991. he already established himself as one of the greatest players in major league history as he continued to extend his streak. then, on september 5, 1995, the world watched as lou gehrig's record that had stood for 56 years was broken by cal ripken jr. ripken would extend his streak for another three years, finally capping the all-time record at 2632 games in a row. over 500 games more than lou gehrig's previous mark.

he retired after the 2001 season and was elected to the baseball hall of fame in 2007. it has been 26 years since ripken ended his streak and no playeeose to challenging him. so i played at the little league all-star shortstop when i was eight and nine. i didn't know whether i was going to get to the major leagues or not. when did you realize you were going to be better than someone like me? did you realize it when you were in little league? when you were a little leaguer did you know you were going to be good enough to play in the major leagues? cal: i knew pretty quickly. i grew up in and around baseball. my dad was the manager of the minor leagues for the orioles in the first 14 years of my life. i went to work with my dad as early as eight or nine. he put me in a uniform, i was the bat boy. i shagged in the outfield. i had a chance to ask all the players how they caught a flyball, how they swing the bat. i had all these teachers in front of me, but i had the skill, that was pretty obvious. david: you played in high school and i assume you did very well.

cal: yes. david: you get drafted by the orioles. at what point when you were in the minor leagues, you realized you weren't just going to be an average player or did you not realize that in the beginning? cal: i was 17, a second round draft pick by the orioles. i turned 18 at the end of that summer. my birthday is august 24 so i was playing a couple months before my 18th birthday. when i first went away to play pro ball, you are a big fish in a small pond in high school. you thought you were pretty good. and then you go and you are part of a team and look around and you are not the big fish anymore. there was one shortstop by the name of bob bonner who came out of texas a&m. he was a sixth round pick for us that year. i was taking ground balls and doing stuff with him and he was clearly light years ahead of me. he had a better arm, he was quicker on the transfer. he could field the ball better. i kept looking at him saying i'm

never going to play. this guy is too good. i'm not that good. they moved him immediately to aa, which opened the spot for me. and then i got my feet on the ground and started playing pretty well and started hitting a couple homeruns and then i got to aa and then i had a breakout season. and in two years, i caught bob bonner and passed him to the big leagues. so he stayed the same and i got better. david: what year did he get into the hall of fame? cal: i think he is a minister in africa right now. david: speaking of the hall of fame, you were elected with 98.5% of the vote. have you ever figured out who that person was who didn't vote for you? [laughter] who was this person waiting for? cal: i hunted all five of them down. i think in my particular year, i

think mariano rivera had gone in with 100% of the vote. david: the only one. cal: my year, there was a protest vote where five people did not turn in a ballot, as a protest of the steroid era. those counted against you. david: did anyone ever come to you and say you are good but you could be better? if you take some of these drugs. cal: no. looking back on it, you could probably see signs in hindsight of players who might have used. when you are playing, if you are not in that secret society, you don't know, and i didn't know. david: some players were like 180 pounds and then later they are 250 pounds. you didn't suspect they were doing something unusual? cal: yes. [laughter] david: you are 6'4". traditionally shortstops were more my height. and when you came along people didn't want people like me to be

shortstops anymore. did you change the game of baseball by showing that shortstops should be bigger and better hitters? or is everybody going back to big, fast and good baseball steelers and not good hitters? cal: a lot of the shortstops like derek jeter give me credit for my success at the position as a bigger shortstop that gave them opportunities that maybe otherwise they wouldn't have had. i think derek would have carved out his own path. i did move from third to short. i was 6'2", 180 when i came out of high school. i had a late growth spurt and almost grew three inches. i put on five to eight pounds per year. by the time i got to the big leagues, i was almost 6'5", 220, and they put me at third base but then earl weaver had this vision that i could play shortstop and we would be a better team if i did. one day he just put me there. my success at the position as a bigger guy, maybe is like -- i'm a basketball fan. i wish i could have been a basketball player but i remember magic johnson changing the thought of a point guard at 6'9".

all of a sudden, the advantages he had in size, i think people started to understand that a bigger guy could play shortstop or second base and today they are some of the more celebrated positions. david: i think your highest compensation level was $6 million a year. that's good compensation in those days for sure. today for the average person that is great income. but today there are some players making 200 million dollars, $300 million. $400 million. one player is making $700 million. do you ever think you should have waited longer to play in the major league's? do you regret that some people are making $700 million and not likely to be as good as you? cal: every day, i think that. yes. [laughter] no, the thing is i had a really good job, i was a baseball player and got paid for it. i was one of the early ones to break $1 million per year. then i got to $2 million. then towards the end, i was at $6 million, but then it started going crazy. i look at it and i remember all of old players that said i wish i would have played in that era.

i think the game evolves, it used to be in baseball, i looked at myself as a sportsman, maybe the value of the entertainment was in the collective when you play as a team and you win. and that's cool. then all of a sudden, it seemed to step over to a lot of players might think that they are entertainers now. it's a little bit more than what you do on the field. it is what commercials, things you do off the field. i think they see themselves differently.

david: i have a grandson who is four years old, if he wants to be a major league baseball player, what would you give advice? what is a six or 10-year-old who aspires to be a baseball player, what should they do? cal: the worst thing you can do is to put too much pressure. david: father did not put pressure on you? cal: no. because my dad was in professional baseball he only saw two of my games between the age of eight and 18 growing up. david: he did not give you tips or tell you to do this or that? cal: he was a great instructor and i witnessed him instructing people so i learned through his instruction. he never stood over me and said you have to do that.

david: when you are a professional baseball player or former, people come up and they want autographs and selfies and they say i hate to bother you but can i bother you with a selfie and what do you say, i am too busy or how do you deal with that? when you go to a hotel and you are a major-league baseball player, people have all of these kids, how do you deal with that? cal: when you get old, they don't do it so much anymore. [laughter] i'm thankful. i still can't believe i get recognized as readily as i do. to me, you always keep in mind that sometimes someone approaching you, they are nervous and they lose their mind and they say you are my biggest fan and i go, i am? they lose it. you have to keep in mind it is meaningful to them. that moment, by signing your name for a little kid, and they run back to their mom or whoever else and say look what i got. you help that happen.

if you remember what happens afterwards, you just manage it and get through it. david: what was it like, the day you broke the record of lou gehrig? there was an enormous fan outpouring, everyone is calling you. you are on nationwide tv. you are running around the stadium and so forth. was that the highlight of your life professionally? cal: there are two moments. i would answer that question in two parts. the best feeling i ever had in baseball is catching the last out of the world series 42 years ago. 42 years ago? 41 years ago. 1983. a line drive. when you catch it, part of the dream of being a baseball player is to win the world series. because i caught the last out, i won the world series. that's the best feeling. second best feeling and the best personal moment was the lap around camden yards. i was embarrassed that the game was stopped because it became official halfway through. everyone kept clapping and i

kept saying thank you. bobby bonilla and rafael palmero pushed me out of the line and said you have to take a lap. or we will never get the game started. i thought it was a silly idea but i went around and started shaking hands. the celebration went from 50,000 down to one on one. and it was kind of cool that way. by the time i got around to third base, i could care less if the game ever started again.

emily: hu