As Baltimore's hometown hero, Cal Ripken Jr., prepares for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame at the end of this month, the interest in Ripken memorabilia has reached a level not witnessed since the "Iron Man" broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-game streak.

PressBox publisher Stan "The Fan" Charles had a chance to sit-down with Ray Schulte, the manwho helped Cal Ripken to start Ironclad Authentics, to talk about the dynamics pushing Cal's memorabilia to higher levels.

Below is the first of a three-part interview. 

Ray Schulte. (Sabina Moran/PressBox)

SC: Ray, When people talk about Ripken baseball, are they talking about three or four segments of an empire?
RS: When Cal retired, many thought he was going to go play golf and rest and relax. That wasn't the case, obviously. Cal is and has been, for the past few years of his playing career, looking to the future. He has always been about the youth initiative and baseball and promoting baseball the "Ripken Way" internationally as well as domestically. So when he was retiring, he had already started the planning process in terms of putting this, what I call the Ripken Baseball umbrella [into place]. And under the umbrella … the first thing Cal did was establish himself with the camps and clinics. He went out and bought a minor league baseball team. 
 
SC: That's the Aberdeen franchise?
RS: The Aberdeen Ironbirds. Right. And he actually built the stadium before he bought the team. Not many people can do that. But his vision for the future is that he was going to build a baseball complex up in Aberdeen and have components such as the minor league team, the youth fields [and] have his camps and clinics work up in that area.

In addition to the camps and clinics, we have the Cal Sr. Foundation. That is the charitable side, and what Cal does there is he puts together a foundation where he can utilize baseball to give kids that are underprivileged [and] deprived an opportunity to see that there are other things out there in the world, and give them an out in terms of that kind of experience.

We have the Ripken Management and Design, which is a division that works in conjunction with our other entities in terms of going out and refurbishing fields and creating consulting contracts with buildings, stadiums.
 
SC: So thats a little like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus building golf courses? So Ripken's vision of what ballparks should be like in their setting is able to be executed somewhat?
RS: Absolutely, and he used those two as models, and they are great models because we saw that in the baseball business there was a need for that. And Cal, obviously, when he looks at a field, he just doesn't look at the mound or the bases. I mean, he looks at the whole ambiance and atmosphere and how it can make a better experience for the player and for the fans. So that's our Ripken Management and Design. And then we have our endorsement side, which also includes all of the sponsorships and activities that pertain to Cal. And we just started Ironclad Authentics, which is a memorabilia division that started out managing Cal's signature with the intent of expanding that to other players and other opportunities, and that is two years old now.  

SC: Now is that really what brought you into the Ripken baseball world, your expertise in authentication?
RS: Well, actually, I was brought into the Ripken world back in 2001, right after Cal retired. And I was brought in to help with the endorsement and sponsorships and licensing and also managing his signature. And as Cal retired in 2001, he made that transformation from obviously being on the outside, [and] now he is on the inside of the business world. And so he asked me to come in and help with the endorsements, and I did that from 2001 to 2004. And then Cal had the vision for taking what we had considered a viable business opportunity, and that was managing his signature and taking my expertise because I have pretty much 20 years in the business in terms of licensing and memorabilia and managing -- in that respect -- off-the-field activity. 

SC: So whose vision was it to come up with the idea of authenticating other signatures under that Ironclad umbrella? 
RS: Well, I think Cal had witnessed that when he was doing it prior to my involvement, and when Major League Baseball came out with the authentication program and he understood the process, he understood what they set out to do. When I came on board, we kind of took it a step further and said this is something that I think would be a great opportunity in terms of managing you, but at the same time we have contacts with all of the other agents in the business and all of the other players. And Cal, obviously you have the credibility and integrity that people look up to. And I said I have the experience and [the] understanding [of] the business aspect of it, and so it was his idea, his decision, to … go forward with this and create an opportunity where we can provide authentic guaranteed signatures to the consumer. That was his primary purpose. 

SC:Whenever Ironclad authenticates something, is there a representative present? For instance, if Cal signs 1,500 baseballs or 1,500 uniforms, is somebody from Ironclad there to witness every single one of those being signed by Cal?
RS: Absolutely. We set up the signing. We determine the location, we determine how many products are going to be signed. We do have an Ironclad person on site at all times verifying it, and we also have our hologram on there. And that's when we took it a step further, and we forged the relationship [with] Major League Baseball. And that was just basically to Cal's credit. Major League Baseball looked to us, and we were only two months old, and we went to them and asked them [if] we could participate in the program. That's an elite group of companies that are under that authentication program that Major League Baseball has, and without hesitation they said, "Absolutely." So we were very fortunate that only two months old they allowed us to work under their umbrella. 

SC: There aren't a lot of great names that are ex-players, but do you think that anybody else would have been accepted that quickly, that readily by Major League Baseball? 
RS: No (laughs). Not to say that there aren't a lot of great ballplayers and great businessmen out there, but I just think Cal is head and shoulders above them in terms of being able to understand the business side of it and the marketing side of it. And the key thing is that anything that Cal has done in any part of his career has always been first class. He has never attempted anything and done it in such a way that it would lack the quality or lack the integrity of the project, and I know baseball understood that. And hopefully they felt that with me working with Cal that there was confidence that I would make sure it was done properly as well.   

SC: How bad was the problem in the industry before Major League Baseball started to come in with their organizations and Ironclad? It was pretty significant, wasn't it?
RS: You know, it's just like in any other business, when you have an opportunity to make money, somebody is going to come in and try and do it in an unethical way, so it's been a problem. And fortunately MLB did come in, and they did set this program up, and the agents and the players out there have gravitated toward it and responded in such a way that now people are used to and look for that dual hologram. I mean, they have to have the Major League Baseball hologram, but it's also … the integrity of the company behind it. And every company under the Major League Baseball authentication program, they have their own niches. One company is based in New York, one company is based in Florida, one company is based in Texas, and so … we are very proud that we are a Baltimore company. We look at ourselves as a national company, but we are based here in Baltimore. We are proud. I know Cal is proud that he can say that he started a company, a vision that is based out of Baltimore.  

Issue 2.28: July 12, 2007