Ryan Ripken, a former Orioles minor leaguer and the son of Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., announced his retirement from professional baseball in late July.
“It’s a culmination of so many different aspects of your career and your life,” Ripken said on Glenn Clark Radio Aug. 9. “I dedicated so much time to chasing my dream of being a professional baseball player.”
The 2012 Gilman School graduate was drafted by Baltimore in the 20th round of the 2012 MLB Draft but elected to sign with South Carolina. After a year with the Gamecocks in which he didn’t see the field, Ripken transferred to Indian River State College, a junior college in Fort Pierce, Fla.
Ripken was drafted in the 15th round in 2014 by the Washington Nationals and spent time in the Nationals organization until March 2017, when he was released and scooped up by Baltimore.
The 6-foot-3, 215-pound first baseman played four seasons in the Orioles organization. Ripken started out in Short-A Aberdeen in 2017 and finished his playing career in Triple-A Norfolk last season.
Ripken’s best season came in 2019, when he split time between Double-A Bowie and High-A Frederick, now a member of the MLB Draft League. Ripken slugged six home runs, posted 33 RBIs, scored 34 runs and notched a career-best .721 OPS.
Ripken elected free agency in November 2021. Still unsigned, he decided to hang up the cleats for good this summer.
“I wish it would’ve ended differently but I realized that this would be the time to move on, and the exciting thing now is that outside of baseball there’s a whole big world so I’m excited to explore and see where the journey takes me,” Ripken said.
In his retirement post on social media, Ripken finished it off by saying that “the journey continues and I look forward to sharing that with you all moving forward.”
One thing Ripken does know about his journey moving forward is that his next step will be spent away from the sport he’s been around his entire life.
“I will never close the door on getting back into anything with baseball, but for right now since that’s all I’ve known in my life, I want to explore a lot of different avenues outside the realm of baseball,” Ripken said.
Having spent time in the Orioles organization from 2017-2021, Ripken was around for the end of the Dan Duquette era and the first few seasons of the Mike Elias era.
Ripken saw firsthand the changes Elias implemented from the jump. Elias gutted the major league team to brought fresh faces to both the major league team and farm system.
“When Mike Elias came in and they made the decision to restart and rebuild, and they wanted to build it from the ground up, they were committed to it,” Ripken said. “I think that is the biggest component of this whole process, is the commitment to the plan.”
Now, the Orioles are finally seeing the rebuild pay off. Still, at this year’s trade deadline, the Orioles shipped off Trey Mancini and Jorge López, two important pieces this season. Despite that, Baltimore remains in the thick of the wild-card race.
Ripken says the fact that players are experiencing the feel of winning means a lot moving forward.
“The most important thing for this season for the Orioles is after having so many years of losing and feeling that you were embarrassed and finding more ways to lose than win, they’re finding ways to win games [and] once you learn how to do that, it doesn’t matter if you traded away Trey Mancini and Jorge López, you understand that you’re going to compete the rest of the year,” Ripken said.
Since May 21, the debut of 2019 No. 1 overall pick and top prospect Adley Rutschman, Baltimore has been one of the best teams in the American League. Rutschman has injected life into a ballclub that sees the playoffs as a legit possibility this season.
In his final season in the Orioles organization, Ripken played with Rutschman in Norfolk for a little more than two months and saw what makes the catcher so special.
“He’s a high-character guy, he works hard, communicates with his teammates and coaches, and he wants to continue to get better,” Ripken said. “To see the Orioles’ pitching numbers continue to [improve] since Adley’s come up speaks volume to him as a catcher.”
For more from Ripken, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Lexi Thompson