One is a short, round, black, left-handed hitting outfielder who was born to swing a bat, doesn't hit for power, trained only in Arizona, speaks fast and used to run fast. The other is a tall, lean, white, right-handed hitting infielder who learned to swing a bat, hits with power, trained only in Florida, measures every spoken word and has never run particularly fast.

They are Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. They are nothing alike, yet they are exactly alike. They will be entering the Hall of Fame together in five years, yet it may be another 105 years before we find two players quite like Gwynn and Ripken. They are hometown guys who stayed home to play, each for 20 seasons for the same team, for less money than they could have gotten elsewhere. They didn't always look good playing, but they played the game with grace.

They aren't students of the game, they are masters of it. They see everything, they log it and they remember it; today, they can recall pitch sequences from when they played at Double-A. Together they amassed over 6,000 hits in the major leagues; surely they can recall 4,000 of them. Ask about a critical play in their careers, and they will supply every detail, including the weather. Neither one of them ever wanted a teammate stealing a sign from the catcher and relaying it to them at the plate. What if the information was wrong? Both have incredible trust in themselves.

Another common denominator is their unending preparation to play. Ripken knows the tendencies of every hitter and every pitcher he has ever faced, he doesn't need a little black book, all the information is stored in his head.

"I don't care what anyone says," Ripken's mom, Vi, once said, "he's smarter than anyone who went to any college."

He analyzes everything. As Orioles trainer Richie Bancells was taping Ripken's ankles, Ripken would want to know 'why do you do it that way? Why don't you do it this way?' Finally, Bancells yelled "I don't know why I do it this way, this is just the way they taught me in school." Now, Ripken can tape his own ankles. No one can tape them better.

Gwynn knows what pitch is coming before anyone else. The Astros' Shane Reynolds has a great splitter. "I can see his split grip," Gwynn once said. Can anyone else see it? "I don't think so," said Gwynn. Unlike Ripken, Gwynn has watched more film than Roger Ebert. He is constantly studying his at-bats and the inclination of pitchers. Gwynn recently said that when it's 3 a.m. and he can't sleep, he'll pop in a tape of one of his at-bats into the VCR. His favorite is the homer he hit off David Wells in Game 1 of the 1998 World Series.

Ripken has a scouting report on everyone and everything. During a trip by major-league players to Japan several years ago, Ripken was introduced to a strange, new game, a cross between basketball, lacrosse and rollerball -- played inside a steel cage. Within a few minutes of observation, he had figured out how to play the game, picked his team with appropriate players, and beat the Japanese at their own game. In his gymnasium at home, he once played a friendly game of one-on-one with his wife. She backed him in (Kelly Ripken is over 6-feet tall). "Watch," he yelled, "she always fakes to her right before she shoots." She did exactly that. Typical Ripken, only he would have a scouting report on his wife.

Gwynn once called a player's bat "his most personal piece of a equipment." Gwynn was so intrigued by the bat-making process that he actually went to the place where his bats were made so he could personally select the billets of wood. Gwynn uses the smallest bat imaginable: 32 inches, 30½ ounces. One of his former teammates, Scott Livingstone, decided to get equally small bats, figuring if they worked for Gwynn, they're worth a try. Exact same length and weight, the only difference was the player's name on the bat.

"I can close my eyes," Gwynn said, "hold my bat in one hand and his in the other, and I can tell my bat every time."

Eyes? Superman doesn't have better eyes than Ripken, who has never worn glasses. He's 41. When he sees someone or something, it registers, he remembers. He once met a woman in a restaurant many years ago. "You have to meet my daughter, she's perfect for you," she said. "Her name is Kelly." Six months later, Kelly ran into Cal and explained, "my mother met you in a restaurant a long time ago." Ripken replied, "you must be Kelly."

Gwynn has even better eyes than Ripken, and he's just over three months older. At the batting cage during the '98 World Series, Gwynn walked out of the cage complaining about how poorly he was swinging the bat. "I can't see at all as well as I used to," he said. A writer facetiously said "so, Tony, what you're 20-20?" He smiled and said "Oh, no, I'm 20-15."

Ripken and Gwynn's greatest fear is being embarrassed from being unprepared. Nothing bothers Ripken more than being out of position on a play and not getting to a ball, which usually only happened when the pitcher didn't throw the ball where he was supposed to. With Ripken, the fear of humiliation is part of his everyday life. Many years ago, the Ripkens had a dog. Kelly Ripken took it to obedience classes as the dog was wilder than Mitch Williams. One night, Kelly got sick during the class, and Cal had to take over.

"I'm not doing that, the dog isn't trained," he said. Well, that dog made Ripken look foolish. Two weeks later, Kelly was taking the dog to class. "I'll take him," Ripken said. Kelly was shocked. "What?" he said, then smiled and said, "have you been training this dog in the middle of the night?" Yes, he had. And at the obedience class that night, that dog was trained.

With Gwynn, his greatest fear is striking out. "I hate striking out, I've always hated striking out," he once said. So, he doesn't. In Gwynn's 20-year career, he has struck out 434 times, which is far fewer than Sammy Sosa has struck out in the last three years (491). Gwynn's single-season strikeout high is 40; the Marlins' Preston Wilson struck out 40 times in April, 2000. Gwynn will finish his career with 233, three-hit games and one three-strikeout game.

Gwynn and Ripken. They played against each other only in All-Star Games, many All-Star Games. When Ripken homered to win the '91 game in Toronto, he homered over Tony Gwynn's head. When Gwynn scored the winning run on Moises Alou's double in the 10th inning in the '94 game in Pittsburgh, he barely beat the relay throw to the plate made by Ripken.

"I was safe," Gwynn said.

"You were out," Ripken said.

Then, together, they laughed the laugh of two great players who loved to play the game, who conducted themselves so well on and off the field, who are as different as they are similar.

We're going to miss the two for sure.

Tim Kurkjian is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a regular contributor to Baseball Tonight. E-mail tim.kurkjian@espnmag.com.