He's One Of The Good Guys

As sports fans we all clearly have our favorite teams and players. In case you hadn't figured it out, mine happen to be the Red Sox and Redskins. What makes sports so much fun though is the fact that as sports fans we can rally around a certain team or player(s) for any amount of time for any reason. I may only be speaking for myself because my entire world revolves around sports, but I have been known to follow a team I have never followed before simply because they were fun to watch, one of their players had a great story, their coach was a soundbite waiting to happen, whatever the reason may have been that particular team or player was able to draw me in. That is why my heart almost dropped the other night when I saw St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Rick Ankiel go flying face first into the wall unable to protect himself. Ankiel is one those players I am talking about.

For those of you who don't who Rick Ankiel is, his story, in a completely athletic sense, is miraculous. No he didn't survive some terrible accident or fight off some life threatening disease or even overcome a debilitating injury. I am not trying to compare him to athletes who stories are more along those lines, but what Ankiel did do is make it to the Majors as a stud young pitcher only to watch himself lose his ability to throw strikes, spend years in the minors trying to work out the kinks to no avail, then try his hand as an outfielder, get called BACK UP to the Majors, and hit 25 homeruns in his first full season as a position player. Did I mention the guy plays pretty good defense too. I have never been to St. Louis, I have no connection to St. Louis, I'll even say of the probably 5 people I have met from St. Louis I dislike 4 of them, however I want Rick Ankiel to succeed.

In the late 90's Ankiel was a cant miss prospect in the Cardinals organization with a fastball you couldn't see and a curveball you couldn't hit. In 2000 as a 20 year old for the Cardinals he went 11-7 with 3.50 ERA and 195 strikeouts. Even the fast track was too slow for Ankiel, he was a sure fire future Cy Young award winner. Then for whatever reason in the postseason of that same year he forgot how to throw strikes, and I'm not talking missing by a couple of inches, I'm talking wild pitches 2 feet above or to the side of the catcher. His ERA in the playoffs that year, 15.75 in only 4 innings pitched with 9, yes 9 wild pitches. How could this have happened to such a good player in such a short period of time? To this day I think if you ask anyone in the Cardinals organization you wouldn't get an answer.

The Cards put him back in the rotation at the start of the 2001 season only to see the problems hadn't gone away. They sent him back down to the minors to try and fix whatever was bothering him, but that didn't work either. As a baseball fan it was a pretty painful process to watch. After a couple more years of little success Ankiel decided to give up his dream of pitching in the big leagues, but not on the dream as a whole.

Imagine my surprise two summers ago when I am watching Baseball Tonight and I hear the name Rick Ankiel, St. Louis Cardinals. Surely they weren't trotting this guy out to the mound again? No they were not, they were starting him in right field...RIGHT FIELD!!! Not only that but the guy could hit. In one of his first games back he hits a homerun (to play the video go to August 9th), and from there he went on a tear to end the season. Never in my life watching baseball have I seen a guy get called up with great expectations at one position, fail, then get called up several years later and succeed. That is not supposed to happen. Not only did he get called up but he produced. 11 homers and 39 RBI in 47 games in 2007, 25 taters and 71 RBI last year. AMAZING!!! Not only that but he may have made two of the best throws I have ever seen from an out fielder in my life. Rick Ankiel had finally arrived.

That's why what happened the other night was so scary. You never want to see anyone get hurt, but for me I especially don't want to see him get hurt. Sure there are guys that spend 10 years in the minors only to get called up for one game and that's it. Once again I am not trivializing anyone elses trials and tribulations, but while Ankiel was spending time in the minors he was also under a microscope as a result of being a guy who had it and then lost it. It was good to hear that Ankiel had been released from the hospital, lets just hope whatever he was doing right didn't get knocked loose by that collision. In a sports world that is currently dominated by dollars and sense it is nice to have someone to root for.