A couple of our writers posted in our admin forum that they didn't like Ripken but couldn't pinpoint why. Here's what I think it is:

Because the media and the baseball establishment has a way of taking ordinary, decent guys and trying to make them into icons when they're not. So then you get hit over the head with how great a guy, how amazing of a person Ripken is over and over again, and it starts to get annoying. Muhammad Ali was an icon - Cal Ripken was just a good player who went about his business. As a person, there was nothing remarkable about him. But the sports are always looking for players they can market and hang their hats on. So they blow these guys out of proportion. And it's easy to start reacting to that and feel - what's so special about this guy? Sure, he's good at baseball - I don't begruge him being an All-Star when he's deserved it, but after a while, can't everyone just quit it with the sucking up? Can't a player just be as good or as bad as he actually is without all this EXTRA - this canonizing the guy, the drooling praise from every corner?

It's like a virus that spreads - people realize a guy is a good player, and that, in addition, he has no obvious public relations baggage (no criminal acts, no run-ins with teammates, etc.), and suddenly, it's safe to praise that player through the roof. After all, the fans like him, your colleagues like him - you won't offend anyone by saying what a great guy he is. In fact, you'll look like a great guy yourself by recognizing and confirming everyone's beliefs about him. So it snowballs, and it gets to the point where the announcers are bending over backwards to make excuses for Ripken's lack of range toward the end of his career or for every boneheaded throw Brett Favre makes. There are a few announcers (Cris Collinsworth (whatever you otherwise think of him) is one) who tell it pretty much like it is, but most just spew whatever inane thoughts cross their habit-entrenched brains, and it's basically just what they hear everywhere else.

So I never liked Ripken. Peyton Manning, either. Maybe that's partly why everyone gives Manning so much flack for not winning in the playoffs - people are so sick of the praise heaped on the guy (great player, ordinary guy). And maybe that's why Mark McGwire's getting scapegoated for the whole steroid era - because he was built up as the savior of baseball for a while, and the episode in front of congress shattered that.