Hi, and welcome to the Streak Page. My name is Wally Stenson. I'm 35, I underwrite commercial insurance for a living in Towson, Maryland, and I have been an Orioles fan since before I could spell it. I started this page in April, when the strike was finally over and there was a season to count down again, and I've been typing on it every night or two since then instead of mowing the lawn, which my wife Lynn will be happy to tell you about.

On this page: Wednesday Night | Tuesday: 2,130 | The Last Ten | Why I Care | My Scrapbook | Kyle's Report | The Streak Book

Our office has had two seats in the upper deck since Camden Yards opened. Back in June we drew names out of a hard hat for the September games, and the slip that came out for September 6 said STENSON. I made them read it twice. Those tickets have been in my wallet ever since, and I checked on them about four times a day.

Kyle and I got downtown before five o'clock. Eutaw Street was packed shoulder to shoulder. Up on the side of the big brick warehouse, where they've been hanging the numbers all season, it said 2130, and everybody kept looking up at it like it might change on its own. Kyle wore his No. 8 shirt and made me take his picture under the warehouse. (See the scrapbook, below. Someday.)

Our seats were about as high up as Camden Yards goes, and I wouldn't have traded them for the dugout. You could see the whole park and the skyline and every flashbulb, and there were flashbulbs going off on every pitch Cal saw all night long.

In the bottom of the fourth Cal hit one into the left field seats. Of course he did. Kyle jumped so high he spilled his soda down the back of the man in front of us, who did not care one bit, because by then nobody cared about anything.

Then the Angels batted in the top of the fifth. When the third out came down the game was official, and that was it: 2,131. The new number went up on the warehouse and the place went up with it. I've been to playoff games. This was louder.

And it didn't stop. Cal came out of the dugout and waved and went back in. Out again. Back in. We stood and clapped for more than twenty minutes. I timed it on my watch for a while and then I gave up timing and just clapped. My hands hurt on Thursday. Finally his teammates pushed him back out onto the field, and he took a lap around the whole ballpark, along the wall, shaking hands and slapping hands with the people in the front row all the way around, past both dugouts.

I looked over at Kyle and he was crying, and I told him that was all right, and then I was crying too, and so was the big fellow with the soda down his back. I'm 35 years old and I'm not one bit embarrassed to say it.

Oh, and there was still a ball game. We won it, 4-2. Afterwards there was a ceremony on the field and Cal spoke to the crowd, and you could have heard a pin drop in a sold-out ballpark.

We didn't get back to Towson until almost one in the morning. Kyle had school on Thursday. I wrote his late note myself. Some things are more important than the first week of fifth grade.

Tuesday night we watched at home on TV, me and Kyle and Lynn on the couch with the dog. The O's beat the Angels 8-0, Cal hit one out, and when the game went official the warehouse said 2130. Tied with Gehrig. Fifty-six years after the Iron Horse's streak ended, somebody finally caught him. I sent Kyle to bed at ten. Neither one of us slept much.

I kept the whole countdown on this page all season, one line a game. It got too long to load on a 14.4 modem, so here are just the last ten. The best ten.

No game Monday, August 28. Off days are the only days Cal ever takes off, and he doesn't even get to pick them. The last nine were all at home, and I caught every one of them, on the radio in the car, on TV in the den, and once, the best one, in person.

I was 22 years old and finishing up college when the streak started, on May 30, 1982. Earl Weaver was the manager, Cal was a rookie, and nobody thought twice about it. He was Rookie of the Year that season. The next year he was the MVP and we won the World Series, and I went to more games at Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street that summer than I'd like my wife to know about. He was MVP again in 1991, the last year on 33rd Street.

Since that day in 1982 I have graduated, gotten married, bought a house, changed jobs twice, and watched Kyle come along and get to be ten. In all that time Cal Ripken has not missed one single game. Not with a cold, not with every bump and bruise you get playing shortstop, not the year we started out 0-21, and not after last year's strike, when I wasn't sure there'd ever be baseball again, never mind a record.

Lou Gehrig's record stood for 56 years. Everybody said it would stand forever. Now it belongs to a fellow who grew up in Aberdeen, Maryland, and just keeps showing up for work. That's why I care. Everybody I know shows up for work. Nobody claps for us. He showed up 2,131 times in a row and the whole country stood up and clapped for him, and for us, a little bit.

COMING SOON! Wednesday's ticket stubs, Thursday's newspapers (I bought four of each), the program, the picture of Kyle under the warehouse numbers, and a souvenir cup I'm not allowed to wash. As soon as I can borrow the scanner at the office, it's all going up right here.

COMING SOON! Kyle's teacher wants everybody to write about something important that happened over the summer. Kyle says his happened in September, so it counts double. He's going to type it into the computer himself and I'll put it up here exactly the way he writes it, no help from Dad.

Sign it by sending me an e-mail and I'll add you here.