Yank Abroad David Yelldell Is Germany's Cal Ripken

Twenty-six year old David Yelldell, who currently plies his trade as the starting goalkeeper of German Regionalliga side Stuttgarter Kickers, has played a Cal Ripken-esque 68 straight games for a total of 6120 straight minutes. So says Germany's kicker magazine (no affiliation with the team) in a story it published on its Web site today.

How does kicker get to 6120 minutes? The article doesn't say, but Yelldell has played every one of his team's 19 Regionnalliga Süd (German third division) games this season for 1710 minutes, according to transfermarkt.de. Add to that last season's tally of 3180 minutes (2970 from 33 league games and 210 minutes--I'm assuming that includes overtime--from two cup ties) and you get 4890 minutes. That leaves 1230 minutes. Yelldell played 1844 total in 2005-06 and was sent off once, according to transfermarkt.de. I'm assuming the streak started after he earned that red card. No word on what the record is for consecutive minutes (or games) played in Germany. For all I know they don't even keep one--especially not in the Regionalliga, which is technically an amateur division.

Yelldell was born in Stuttgart in 1981. I don't know how he comes across U.S. citizenship but he has never played any international matches for the U.S., though it appears he was part of the U23 player pool at one point. He did a stint for Blackburn from 2003 to 2005 mainly as the backup to Brad Friedel's backup.