Cal Ripken Jr. Talks JJ Hardy

MASN's Roch Kubatko sat down for an interview with Cal Ripken Jr. on his blog. The interview was great stuff, as is pretty much everything that Roch posts on his blog. I love checking out the School of Roch. This post stood out to me though, because it was a Hall of Famer talking about one of our best players. We O's fans love JJ Hardy because he does all the little things right. I was a huge Hardy fan before he ever came to Baltimore. While he was with Milwaukee, I was on the Hardy bandwagon and wanted us to look into trading for him. Luckily we did and it worked out for everyone. It is great to get a Hall of Famers opinion on any of our players though. Even better to get an opinion of a shortstop from the greatest shortstop of all time...

"He doesn't do it flashy,"
"He knows himself, he gets good jumps on the ball, he gets good reads, he positions himself well. I like all the little fundamental things he does. He gets there early on steal coverages, he makes tags the right way, he's in the right position early on cutoffs and relays. You can tell that he's a thinker. He thinks about the game, he thinks about what his responsibilities are. And he doesn't make the highlight reel because he's not that flashy-type player. He makes the hard plays look much easier than they are."
"If you're in your position early and you're anticipating, not the good hop, but the bad hop, then you're ready for it," Ripken said. "Those are the small, little things he does. Even on a double play throw, one of the most common mistakes that big league players make, and any guys make, is they go to second base anticipating that it's going to be a good throw so they can turn it. But players like J.J. go there thinking, 'OK, this might be a bad throw.' If it's a good throw, it makes it easy. If it is a bad throw, then you're already ready to catch it and at least get the out, or catch it and then finish the foot work that can let you turn the double play.
"To me, it's his approach all around. He's anticipating, he's thinking, he looks at all the possibilities."

Good to see Cal Ripken Jr. agrees with me. I don't need flashy, I want someone that does that job right. We had flashy and bad in Pie. We don't need players like that. We want competent major leaguers. Luckily the O's have a very competent major leaguer in Hardy.

-Noland