BALTIMORE -- Sometime in the next few days, Cal Ripken is going to walk into Mike Hargrove's office and utter the words the Baltimore Orioles manager has been longing to hear:

"Grover, I'm ready."

	Ripken

Ripken, who has been on the disabled list since June 28 with inflammation of the lower back, is tantalizingly close to returning to the Orioles.

"Physically, I'm very happy with just what's happened in the last seven to 10 days," the third baseman said Wednesday. "I've been pushing it. There's still a couple of small steps that I have to find out about, such as playing at the highest level of intensity. Also, I haven't slid, I haven't stood up there at the plate with someone throwing 95 mph."

Those are the type of things that are solved with a rehab assignment, but Ripken doesn't want to think about that yet.

"Let me first feel really good. When I feel I'm really close ... then I think we could have the rehab conversation," he said. "Realistically, it might be two, or three, or four more days."

Ripken playing in a minor league game would cause quite a stir. He isn't certain he would get full benefit from such an exercise.

"It would create a different kind of atmosphere, one that we'd have to look at to see whether it's productive for me as a hitter or counterproductive," he said. "It would be productive for a lot of reasons. Attendance wise, it would be a World Series kind of atmosphere for a lot of the players that were playing.

"Maybe the alternative is to come back in a spring training type setting here (at Camden Yards)," he said, "but I don't want to get ahead of myself."

When Ripken was on the disabled list last year, he quietly went to the Orioles' minor league camp in Sarasota, Fla. for his rehab assignment. With that in mind, he spoke about a similar plan for playing with a minor league team in the Orioles' system.

"That would be my style. I would sneak up and play with them," he said. "Sneak in, play a game, sneak out."