Upsetting look from Cecil Fielder helped Tigers’ Prince Fielder forge his iron man approach

“I didn’t like the way he looked at me,” Fielder said. “So from then on, I felt like unless it’s broke, it’s my job to be in there.”

Of all the unlikely baseball wonders, Prince Fielder: Iron Man may well beat out Yuniesky Betancourt: Employed. At a listed 5-foot-11, 275 pounds, Fielder is far from the picture of fitness. His swing is a giant fast-twitch corkscrew, every muscle, ligament, tendon and bone exposed to the massive torque he generates at the plate. Do not let his first name fool you; he does not come off as the heir to Cal Ripken Jr.

And yet nobody in baseball is as good as Fielder at a vital and underrated quality: playing games. On Sunday afternoon, he started his 440th consecutive game, the longest current streak in baseball. The only thing separating him from 767 straight games played is one day off, Sept. 13, 2010, which he spent hooked up to IV fluids trying to rid himself of flu-like symptoms.

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