updated 11:27 a.m. ET Jan. 8, 2007

BALTIMORE - Cal Ripken is a virtual lock to gain first-ballot entry into the Hall of Fame when the results are announced Tuesday.

The real question is: Is the feeling unanimous? No player has received 100 percent of the vote. But no one has had a career quite like that of Cal Ripken, either.

“He’s got a shot,” Hall of Fame member Brooks Robinson said. “It’s a long shot, but it’s going to be interesting.”

Ripken put up plenty of dazzling numbers during his sensational 21-year career, all with the Baltimore Orioles. He played in 2,632 consecutive games, tallied 3,184 hits, hit 431 home runs, won two MVP awards and appeared in 19 All-Star games.

Now, five years after his retirement, he has a chance to accumulate yet another eye-opening number for his Hall of Fame plaque: 100, as in the percentage of votes received for entry into baseball’s shrine.

Since the Baseball Writers’ Association of America began voting for Hall of Fame entrants by ushering in the inaugural class of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner in 1936, no player has received 100 percent of the vote.

Each year, more than 500 eligible BBWAA members receive a ballot filled with around two dozen possibilities. Only a few players actually receive votes.

“History tells us that he’s not going to be unanimous because nobody’s ever unanimous. Until somebody is, my gut feeling is it won’t happen that way,” said Peter Schmuck, a baseball writer for The (Baltimore) Sun and a former BBWAA chapter president.

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It’s hard to imagine a candidate more worthy than Ripken, a player who respected and honored the game. The son of a lifelong baseball man, Ripken never asked or wanted a day off. He was a 6-foot-4 power-hitting shortstop, one who redefined a position manned previously by diminutive slap-hitters.

Some say Ripken saved baseball in September 1995, with his impromptu feel-good lap around Camden Yards after he broke Lou Gehrig’s record of playing in 2,130 consecutive games. Ripken’s march to 2,131 that season displayed what was right about a game that had been staggered a year earlier by a bitter labor dispute that forced cancellation of the World Series.

“I know the criteria to be a Hall of Famer,” Robinson said, “and Cal is every one of those things.”

The closest anyone has come to receiving 100 percent of the vote is Tom Seaver, who was on 425 of 430 ballots to earn 98.84 percent in 1992.

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Nolan Ryan ranks second with 98.79 percent, in 1999, followed by Ty Cobb (98.23 in 1936). Babe Ruth is ninth with 95.13 percent, which says a lot about the chances Ripken has of earning unanimous selection. If 11 guys felt inclined to leave Babe Ruth off their ballot in 1936, it’s not difficult to imagine at least one person failing to check the box next to Ripken’s name.

“No one ever gets 100 percent. It’s been a tradition, so I suspect that will probably remain true,” said Mike Flanagan, a former teammate of Ripken and now the Orioles’ executive vice president for baseball operations. “However, I don’t know what criteria you could use to decide not to vote for him.”

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