Any good baseball fan remembers who was the best rookie pitcher in 2000. He was 11-7 with a 3.50 ERA and an amazing 194 k's in just 175 innings. Then he started game one of the NLDS against the Braves. Rick Ankiel threw 5 wild pitches in one inning, and went on to throw 4 more in the NLCS as the Red Birds fell to the Mets. He went from those great regular season numbers to a 1-1 record in the postseason with a 15.75 ERA, posting 11 walks in 4 innings of work. Rick "Wild Thing" Ankiel was born.
Again in '01 he couldn't find the plate, and no amount of memorizing bra and pantie descriptions from the Victoria's secret catalog would help. He went back to the minors and worked on it, and made it back to the bigs in '04, but again he wasn't effective. So he changed careers...kind of.
Rick went from one time can't miss pitcher (along with the O's Matt Riley who was another 20 year old can't miss lefty in the minors in '99, who missed) to trying to make it as an outfielder. This year in the minors Rick lead all AAA players in HR (32) and posted 89 RBI in just 102 games. So the Cardinals decided to give him a shot in the bigs, and that shot comes tonight. Rick will bat second and play RF in St. Louis in their game against San Diego (Which is German for a wale's vagina) Rick will be sporting #49, rather then the #66 he wore in all those games as a pitcher. I wish him all the best of luck. If there's any justice in the world he'll hit a dinger tonight.
1 comment:
Looks like all is right with the world, Ankiel hit a three run homer in last night's game. That's good work out of you Rick!
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