“Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game.” So goes the tagline for Barry Levinson’s iconic 1984 cinematic adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel, The Natural, the story of Roy Hobbs’ journey from young pitching phenom to middle-aged outfield hero. Fast-forward 23 years, subtract the magical bat, add some perseverance and determination, and this fictional feel-good story about overcoming adversity takes on a very real dimension in the form of St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Rick Ankiel.
Ankiel, USA Today’s High School Player of the Year in 1997, enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom, picking up numerous accolades—he was named the Minor League Player of the Year by both USA Today and Baseball America in 1999 and finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2000—as one of the finest pitching prospects to come along in years. He finished his first full season in 2000 at the ripe old age of 20 with an 11-7 record, a 3.50 ERA and 194 strikeouts in only 175 innings. He seemed destined to achieve every player’s dream of greatness. How quickly those dreams were destroyed.
In the third inning of game one of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves in 2000, the southpaw gave up four runs on two hits, not all that uncommon for a young pitcher in his first postseason start. What was uncommon was Ankiel’s inexplicable loss of control in that inning: he became the first major-leaguer to throw five wild pitches in one inning since Bert Cunningham did it for Buffalo of the Players League in 1890.
Ankiel would go on to throw nine wild pitches in four innings during those playoffs. He made numerous attempts to cure his wildness before finally trading in his life on the mound for one in the batter’s box in 2005. Never giving up his boyhood dream of playing professional ball, Ankiel honed his new craft with the bat at the lowly Rookie Ball level. After belting 32 home runs and driving in 89 runs in the minors, he was recalled to St. Louis’ major league club on August 10.
Just like Robert Redford’s character, Ankiel used his never-ending passion for baseball to reinvent himself and return to success on the diamond in a new capacity. After hitting four home runs in his first 35 at-bats as St. Louis’ starting right fielder, he has injected new life into the Cardinals’ playoff hopes—and into a sport in the midst of a steroids scandal that has tarnished the integrity of the game.
Ankiel is revitalizing an entire sports world, which so often overlooks such desire and devotion in favor of athletes who take their talents for granted. Sports are so much bigger than negative stories involving performance-enhancing drugs, dog-fighting, or referee betting scandals. Sports are about passion. About playing for the pure love of competition. And about ordinary people, like ourselves, creating extraordinary moments. Rick Ankiel helps us remember that.
