In today's society, Cal Ripken Jr. and his teammates would be vilified for physically hazing their teammates. But back in the day, this was a norm.
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Ripken's former teammate Greg Zaun recently spoke out about how Ripken and his Orioles teammates physically abused him to keep him in line when he was a young player. Weirdly enough, Zaun says the game needs more hazing. He's now a broadcaster for the Blue Jays, and he says physical abuse would have helped some of these young Jays develop better. Here's Zaun on Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet and 590-AM radio in Canada recalling his hazing experience from Ripken:
"If I had a dollar for every time Cal worked me over, physically, I'd be a pretty wealthy guy. He still owes me a suit! He told me flat out, he said, 'You are never to come past this point into the back of the plane, under no circumstances.' So, I'm in my first suit that I paid for myself as a Major League player, feelin' real frisky, and Cal says, 'I need you to come here.'
At that point, Zaun traveled to the back of the plane because Ripken told him to do so. But that was a major mistake.
And all of a sudden I crossed over that imaginary barrier line. He tackled me, wrestled me to the ground. They had just got done eating a bunch of blue crabs in the back of the plane, so there was nothing but mud and Old Bay seasoning everywhere. He throws me to the ground and he tears my suit off of me, and I'm like, 'What are you doing?' And he goes, 'Remember when I said that under no circumstances do you come back here?' I'm like, 'Well you just told me to!' 'I said under no circumstances, and that includes when I ask you to come back here.'"
This is extremely weird because Toronto employs Zaun and he thinks the team needs to physically haze its players to make them better. Not only that, Zaun was a major leaguer who is talking about one of the greatest ever and saying it's OK to physically abuse kids, and it's right because it'll help them succeed. What if coaches and kids start doing this now because apparently it helped the Orioles succeed? This is ludicrous.
You can listen to the entire radio segment right here.
