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I love twisting Cardinal's fans tails....

Cal revolutionized the position....

had he not, A Rod would have never played SS...

History will show that Cal is the one that made the SS a power position....

and I believe that Ripken holds 2 key records that show him to be a great infielder...

the 1990 season was the very peak of his defensive career...he had 3 count em 3 errors in 162 games!! that is a .996 fielding percentage. Unequaled by either of the Ozzies....who are both great fielders in their own rights...

Ripken more than held his own against them.

I pulled this off of ESPN

Ripken the fielder

Holds single-season record for highest fielding percentage by a shortstop -- .996 in 1990.
Holds record for fewest errors by a shortstop in 150 or more games (3, 1990).
Holds AL career records for double plays (1,565) and most years leading league in putouts (6).
Holds AL single-season record with 583 assists (1984).
Led AL seven times in shortstop assists.
Seventh all-time in career assists by a shortstop.
Second all-time in career double plays by a shortstop (to Ozzie Smith).
Holds AL record with 95 consecutive errorless games at shortstop.

Your fielding pct. will be higher when you don't have any range. Ozzie could get to and get outs on balls Cal would just have to watch go by. I saw Ozzie get an error on a ball no one else would have gotten close to because it was just off his glove. Other ss would not have even tried.

I challenge anyone who knows baseball to put this question to 100 people who are not Baltimore or St. Louis fans:

If you were selecting your starting shortstop based only on his fielding ability, would you rather have Cal Ripkin Jr. or Ozzie Smith on your team?

I can guarantee you that no more than five of those 100 people would select Cal Ripkin, and after they came down off their crack high they'd wonder what the hell they were thinking.