BALTIMORE (AP) - Cal Ripken Jr. said Friday that his family and the police were still searching for answers about the kidnapping of his mother last week, a crime he called both bizarre and unsettling.
The Hall of Fame infielder, speaking publicly for the first time about the abduction, said he doesn't know why his 74-year-old mother, Vi, was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home outside Baltimore, blindfolded and driven around for nearly 24 hours. She was found unharmed in her car early the next morning, near her home.
He said there's reason to believe the kidnapping was planned in advance, but he can't be sure and doesn't know why she was targeted.
"It's bizarre in many ways," he said.
Investigators say there was no ransom demand, and the elder Ripken has said her abductor appeared not to know that she was the mother of the retired Baltimore Oriole who owns baseball's record for most consecutive games played. Police have said little about the investigation but have released a sketch of a suspect and video surveillance footage pulled from a store.
Ripken said the experience has rattled the otherwise tough woman, known for years as the matriarch of the famous baseball family. She has been "talking nonstop" about the kidnapping but remains too shaken up to return to the home in Aberdeen where she and her husband, Cal Sr., raised four children.
Still, she's continuing to attend her granddaughter's sports games, visit the beauty parlor and can still be seen in the stands for home games of the Single-A Ironbirds, a minor league club in Aberdeen owned by Cal Ripken.
"Mom, by and large, is a tough, strong woman. She's been able to endure this," Ripken said.
He fielded questions inside the B&O Warehouse at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Known for a lunch-pail work ethic and a steady, unflappable approach to the game, the athlete appeared to choke up as he described the night he learned his mother was missing.
He was told the police had received a report of a car with his mother's tags on it, with a woman tied up in the back seat. Ripken said he drove around looking for his mother, unsure where she was or what had happened to her.