For decades, he’s hunted tickets from Cal Ripken’s ‘Iron Man’ streak. Just 8 elude him

It's one of baseball's most iconic records: For 2, 632 straight games over 17 seasons, Cal Ripken Jr.

Key points

• After decades of searching, Taylor is just eight tickets short of completing what experts agree is already one of the most impressive collections of baseball tickets ever assembled.
• Did I ever really think I would obtain this far?

It's one of baseball's most iconic records: For 2, 632 straight games over 17 seasons, Cal Ripken Jr. Never missed a day in the Baltimore Orioles' lineup.

For the past 28 years, lifelong Orioles fan Rick Taylor has been amassing a collection to match it, trying to gather a ticket from each game of Ripken's "Iron Man" streak. It lasted from 1982 to 1998. After decades of searching, Taylor is just eight tickets short of completing what experts agree is already one of the most impressive collections of baseball tickets ever assembled.

"Did I ever really think I would obtain this far? No, not really, " remarked Taylor, a retired 69-year-old food industry salesman who lives outside Baltimore. "But I always said to myself that if I could ever get down to single digits, I think I could do it."

Taylor's collection now fills 16 boxes in his collectible-filled basement, each ticket individually protected in a hard plastic holder and labeled with its corresponding game number – the physical manifestation of a record that plenty of believe will never be broken.

In short, for decades, he's hunted tickets from Cal Ripken's 'Iron Man' streak. Just is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.