For Raeke, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see a player that comes along once in a lifetime.

“It’s the type of guy that Cal is,” Raeke said. “He always did everything right; there were no controversies in his career. A lot of the young players today, they play for the money. He played for, and loved, the game of baseball. I don’t think I know anyone else with that kind of persona that Cal Ripken has: He’s wholesome, he’s good.”

Even if he didn’t play in 2,632 straight games — shattering the seemingly unbreakable mark of 2,130 set by former New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig — Ripken would be entering the Hall of Fame.

But, like it or not, he is defined by The Streak.

“While you’re doing it you don’t allow yourself to reflect and think about it and how hard it might be. When it’s all finished, you look back and say, I was lucky, I was lucky in a lot of ways,” he said. “You get hurt in a hundred or thousand different ways and miss a game. I was able to bypass that and do it.”

The Streak nearly ended in June 1993, after Ripken twisted his right knee while trying to play peacemaker in a brawl involving the Seattle Mariners. The next day, after struggling to get out of bed, he called his parents and told them he was hurting too much to play that night.

“They lived about 45 minutes away. Forty-five minutes after I hung up the phone, they were there,” Ripken recalled.

He played that night, of course, and kept on playing until he voluntarily sat out the final home game of the 1998 season.

“When the mind wears down on you, that’s when the body breaks down,” said Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon. “He was able to control the mental strain of the game as well as the physical strain.”

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The Streak was a product of Ripken’s determination to become the quintessential everyday player. He arrived at the ballpark eager to be in the starting lineup, and each of the eight managers he played for during the run — including his father — decided the Orioles were a better team on that day with Ripken on the field.

“It wasn’t my job to say, I’m only 75 percent, I’m not feeling well, I’m not hitting well, this pitcher is tough on me. The manager’s job is to make all of those decisions,” Ripken said. “Managers like Frank (Robinson) and Earl and Joe (Altobelli) and all of those guys put my name in the lineup.”

And now, Ripken’s name will be in the Hall of Fame.