Cal Ripken Jr. Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
48 free Cal Ripken Jr. trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cal Ripken Jr. played 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, a streak that began in 1982 and did not end until he chose to sit out a game in 1998. Along the way he won two MVP awards, a World Series, a Rookie of the Year, two Gold Gloves and the record for home runs by a shortstop, and he redefined what a shortstop could look like at 6 ft 4 in. This quiz covers the streak in detail: the night in September 1995 when the banner on the warehouse flipped from 2130 to 2131, the 22-minute ovation, the world record he took from Sachio Kinugasa a year later, and the rookie who finally took his place in the lineup. It also covers the family (a father who managed him and a brother who played beside him), the 1983 championship, the 1991 season when he won everything in sight, the 3,000th hit and the near-unanimous Hall of Fame vote. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Orioles fans should clear the easy tier; the expert tier goes to the minor leagues and the 33-inning game.
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Q 01Besides baseball, which sport did Ripken play for his high-school team?
Soccer
Soccer was his other sport, and colleges came calling. He and his father decided he should turn professional at 17 instead, reasoning that he could always start college in his mid-twenties if baseball failed.
Q 02What is Ripken's famous nickname?
The Iron Man
The Iron Man earned the name the hard way. He played on after badly spraining an ankle in 1985 and after twisting a knee in an on-field brawl in 1993, when even he doubted he could take the field next day.
Q 03Which award for a player's work in his community did Ripken receive in 1992?
Roberto Clemente Award
The Roberto Clemente Award recognises what a player gives back, and his giving did not stop with his career. In 2001 he and his brother set up a foundation in their father's name to bring baseball to disadvantaged children.
Q 04Whose 56-year-old record did Ripken break in 1995?
Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig's old teammate Joe DiMaggio, then 80, came to the game and said Gehrig would have tipped his cap. The Orioles sold special seats that night to fund research into the disease that killed him.
Q 05Which brother of Ripken's also played for the Orioles?
Billy
Billy Ripken joined the Orioles as a second baseman in 1987, the year their father took over as manager. Cal Sr. thus became the first man to manage two of his sons at once in the major leagues.
Q 06What did Ripken do in both the game that tied the consecutive-games record and the one that broke it?
Hit a home run
Hit a home run: one in the sixth inning on the night he tied the old mark, another in the fourth the next evening, in game 2,131. The second came with the President of the United States in the broadcast booth.
Q 07Ripken's 1995 record helped baseball recover from which crisis?
Players' strike
A players' strike had wiped out the 1994 World Series and left many fans swearing off the game. His lap of the ballpark on the record night, shaking hands with the crowd, became the picture of its recovery.
Q 08Which driver won the NASCAR race renamed in Ripken's honour in September 2001?
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at Dover in the number 8 car and led the most laps. Thirteen days later the Orioles retired Ripken's own number 8 at his final home game.
Q 09Where did giant numbers change from 2130 to 2131 on the night Ripken broke the record?
The warehouse wall
The warehouse wall beyond right field displayed his streak in huge numbers. They changed to 2131 in the fifth inning, when the game became official, and the crowd stood and cheered for more than 22 minutes.
Q 10In 2024 Ripken became a part-owner of the Orioles in a group led by which billionaire?
David Rubenstein
David Rubenstein, a private-equity billionaire born in Baltimore, bought control from the Angelos family for a reported $1.725 billion. For Ripken, 63, it was an official return to the organisation he had played for all his career.
Q 11How did Ripken's streak finally end in 1998?
His own choice
His own choice: less than half an hour before the last home game of the season he walked into his manager's office and asked for the night off.
Q 12Who beat Ripken to the 1990 Gold Glove?
Ozzie Guillén
Ozzie Guillén of the White Sox made 17 errors to Ripken's three, then a record low for a shortstop, and took the award anyway. Ripken finally won Gold Gloves in each of the next two seasons.
Q 13In which city did Ripken win both the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game MVP award in 1991?
Toronto
Toronto staged only the second All-Star Game ever played outside the United States. Ripken won the home run contest there, then hit a three-run homer the next day that decided the game itself.
Q 21Whose record for home runs as a shortstop did Ripken break?
Ernie Banks
Ernie Banks set the mark before the Cubs moved him from shortstop to first base in mid-career. Ripken passed it and reached 345 home runs at the position before he, too, changed positions.
Q 22Which unwanted career record did Ripken hold until Albert Pujols passed him in 2017?
Most double plays grounded into
Most double plays grounded into: he took the record from Hank Aaron in 1999 and ended with 350. He hit the ball hard and was never quick, so his ground balls reached infielders with time to turn two.
Q 23Who threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Ripken's record-breaking game in 1995?
His two children
Q 14Which US president attended Ripken's record-breaking game?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton brought Vice President Al Gore with him and spent half an inning in the broadcast booth as a guest commentator, describing the play to a national television audience.
Q 15Which network carried Ripken's record-breaking game live?
ESPN
ESPN stayed with the scene for the whole ovation, more than 22 minutes, without once cutting away to a commercial.
Q 16Ripken's only World Series title came in 1983 against which team?
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies, an ageing team full of stars, went down in five games. Ripken hit only .167 in the series, yet he was the one who finished it, catching Garry Maddox's line drive for the final out.
Q 17Which award did Ripken win in 1982?
Rookie of the Year
Rookie of the Year honours went to him after 28 home runs, as the Orioles chased Milwaukee to the season's final day. A game he sat out that May turned out to be the last one he would miss for 16 years.
Q 18Which Orioles manager moved Ripken from third base to shortstop in 1982?
Earl Weaver
Earl Weaver reasoned that a third baseman who can hit is easy to find and a shortstop who can is not. Once moved, Ripken did not come out of a game there for a single inning in the next five years.
Q 19Which Orioles third baseman, a mentor to the young Ripken, was traded in 1982 to open a place for him?
Doug DeCinces
Doug DeCinces had been giving him tips since he was a boy hanging around his father's minor-league teams. The Orioles traded the mentor to California, and the pupil homered in his first at-bat of the new season.
Q 20Ripken grew up in, and later bought a team for, which Maryland town?
Aberdeen
Aberdeen got its own minor-league club in 2002, when he bought a team in upstate New York and moved it home as the IronBirds. They played at Ripken Stadium, where his son Ryan later wore the uniform.
His two children did the honours: Rachel, who was five, and Ryan, who was two. Ryan grew up to be drafted by the Orioles himself, and later played for the minor-league club his father owned.
Q 24Why did many doubt Ripken's 1982 move to shortstop?
He was thought too big
He was thought too big: at 6 ft 4 in he towered over the small, quick men who normally played there. He covered the ground by positioning instead, and a generation of tall, power-hitting shortstops followed him.
Q 25Which shortstop swapped positions with Ripken at the 2001 All-Star Game?
Alex Rodriguez
Alex Rodriguez, voted in at shortstop, insisted that the 40-year-old third baseman take his old position for the first inning. Ripken then homered in the third inning and was named the game's MVP.
Q 26Ripken was the last Oriole to bat at which ballpark in 1991?
Memorial Stadium
Memorial Stadium, the Orioles' home since 1954, closed with a loss to Detroit in which he made the last out. Home plate was then dug up and driven across town by limousine to the new ballpark.
Q 27Who was inducted into the Hall of Fame alongside Ripken in 2007?
Tony Gwynn
Tony Gwynn had retired in the same autumn as Ripken, 2001, after 20 seasons with the San Diego Padres. So the two one-club men came up for election together, and each got in at the first attempt.
Q 28Why was Ripken's final game moved from New York to Baltimore?
The 9/11 postponements
The 9/11 postponements cost baseball a week, and the games the Orioles lost at home were added to the end of the schedule. A career due to finish in New York ended in front of his own fans instead.
Q 29Ripken was chosen as starting shortstop on which honorary MLB lineup?
All-Century Team
The All-Century Team was picked by more than two million fans in 1999, and Ripken drew the most votes of any shortstop. A panel then had to add Honus Wagner, whom the voters had left only fourth.
Q 30Which visiting team joined the standing ovation when Ripken's streak ended in 1998?
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees climbed out of their dugout after the game's first out to join the crowd's standing ovation for the man who was not playing.