Ray Mileur
January 16, 2005
Against all odds - The Rick Ankiel Story
By Ray Mileur
Last Friday, Rick Ankiel filed for salary arbitration and coming up this Tuesday, the process will begin to determine how much Ankiel's services will cost the Cardinals in 2005.
The fact that Ankiel is still part of any plans of a major league baseball team, in itself, is a true testament of someone winning against all odds.
By now, Ankiel should be closing in on his 100th career win and starting his sixth full season in the major leagues and the thought of going into arbitration for the services of a Rick Ankiel, well it's just something you wouldn't want to figure on doing.
That is if everything went right and we all know by now that everything with Rick Ankiel didn't go according to plan. No, not at all, as a matter of fact, everything fell to pieces right before our eyes.
When 20-year-old, southpaw, Rick Ankiel made his major-league debut on August 23rd, 1999 at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, he had already earned a reputation as the top pitching prospect in all of baseball. He had already beaten the odds when you think about it. He was chosen in the 2nd round of the 1997 free agent draft by the St. Louis Cardinals and was the 72nd player chosen and here he was in the majors already in 1999.
Armed with a lively mid-90s fastball, a devastating sharp breaking curve and a developing change up, Ankiel burst on the major league scene in 2000. It took little more than a season and a half for Ankiel to make his way through the Cardinals' farm system. In his brief time in the minors, he was named Minor League Player of the Year in 1999 by USA Today and Baseball America and was the Cardinals' Minor-League Pitcher of the Year in both 1998 and 1999.
The future never looked so bright for a Cardinal prospect. Every year we hear of the abundance of pitching within the Cardinals minor league system and the hype that goes with these pitchers and their potential often far exceeds the reality when the season begins and they have to actually pitch. But in Ankiel, here comes a pitcher that was actually living up to the hype, and he could pitch, and he came along at just the right time. If the Cardinals had a chance to make it to the post season in 2000, it had even a much better chance if Ankiel could make the club.
Ankiel fanned 194 batters in just 137 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in 1999. After posting a 3.47 ERA in 33 innings in his first taste of major league action in 1999 the same season, he won the fifth spot in the Cardinals' starting rotation the following spring and went 11-7 with a 3.50 ERA to help St. Louis to an NL Central Championship, becoming a fan favorite along the way and getting better and better with each outing.
Finally the real deal, finally a Cardinal pitching prospect making it to the majors, and by some miracle we had not traded him away. He was all ours and the hopes and dreams of the return of glory years for the St. Louis Cardinals and a World Championship road on his arm.
Then came the post season and Cardinals Manager Tony LaRussa tabbed Ankiel, over veterans Darryl Kile, Andy Benes, Pat Hentgen and Garrett Stephenson, as the Redbirds starter in game one of the division series against the Atlanta Braves. It was here the long road to success took it's first of many detours.
Staked to a 6-0 lead Ankiel breezed through the first two innings as the Cardinals appeared en-route to their first World Series appearance in years. Then came the 3rd inning and right before our eyes, our dreams of a World Championship that rode on this young left-hander's arm, came to an abrupt end. Retiring just two of the eight batters he faced before being pulled out of the game, our Top Gun allowed four runs and threw a major league record of five wild pitches in the frame.
St. Louis went on to win that game and sweep the Braves in three games.
LaRussa and pitching coach Dave Duncan sent the kid back out to the mound in game two on the National League Championship Series against the Mets. A move that has been widely critiqued by Monday Morning Quarterbacks everywhere, but a move that I, for one, supported. Like my Grandpa always said "If you fall off a horse, you just get up, dust yourself off and get back right back on."
In front of a sold out crowd in Busch Stadium, with every single Cardinal fan holding their breath and hoping, pulling, wishing and praying that Rick Ankiel could regain his regular season form, It could happen, after all, he had more than a three to one strikeout to walk ratio during the regular season and held batters to just a .219 batting average. The first game against the Braves, 5 wild pitches it had to be a fluke. After all everyone has a bad day, it just usually isn't in front of a national audience.
The game got underway, the will of the fans, combined with the heart and guts and shear determination of the young left- hander wasn't enough on that day to get out of the first inning. Ankiel lasted just 0.2 innings, retiring only two of the six batters he faced, while walking three and allowing a double and two more wild pitches.
What had started out to be a dream for Cardinal fans as the post season approached quickly turned into a nightmare.
It was over, in just 3.1 innings, seven wild pitches, It was scary, it was sad. Not so much that the hopes of Cardinal Nation was riding on this young kid and what a National League Championship or even a World Champions meant to the fans and the City of St. Louis, but it was sad because our heart went out to him as more than just a ballplayer but as a human being.
Our heart went out to someone who had already overcome so much in his personal life. It was just in May of 2000 that the news broke that Rick's father. Richard Ankiel. was arrested for allegedly throwing a loaded handgun from his car. and that he was to begin serving an almost 6-year sentence for participating in a cocaine and marijuana trafficking operation. Nothing like having the family dirty laundry being aired for everyone to see. It would be hard to imagine the impact this news had on Rick at the time, but even harder to imagine the impact that his father's life and lifestyle had on the Cardinal pitcher while he was growing up. To make it as far as he did at that time is a testament of Rick's toughness, grit and sheer determination. He had already beaten the odds.
I knew it was over, at least for that season, but LaRussa used Rick again in game five in New York and this time the kid lasted just 0.2 innings throwing another two wild pitches allowing another run. Four innings - nine wild pitches. It's over, I said again, to no one standing in the room, my heart bleeding for this kid. (keep the part about my bleeding heart to yourself)
The Cardinals went on to lose the National League Championship series to the Mets in just five games. Ankiel was finished and so were the Cardinals.
Hope springs eternal, especially in baseball, just ask a Cub fan. The Cardinals started the 2001 season with Ankiel on the major league roster, hoping that he could regain the form that he displayed in his rookie campaign before things fell apart in the post season. A disastrous 2001 spring training foretold a wild start to the season, and, sure enough, after six starts, Ankiel had a 7.13 ERA and 25 walks in 24 innings. In May, Rick was optioned to Memphis, where his struggles continued. In three starts for the AAA Redbirds, he lasted a total of just 4.1 innings. He went 0-2 with a 20.77 ERA, but even these numbers don't tell you the whole story. In just 4.1 innings Rick walked 17 batters and threw 12 wild pitches. It got so bad at Memphis that Cardinals sent Ankiel to their rookie league team, the Johnson City Cardinals, in the Appalachian League.
Rick did perform well during his stint with Johnson City, but the Appalachian League is a long, long way from the majors and the road back is a long one, full of pot holes and detours and the odds of getting back to The Show are slim at best.
Rick missed the entire 2002 season with a left elbow sprain after appearing in just one spring training game before experiencing arm trouble. Eventually diagnosed with left elbow tendinitis and a strained flexor muscle, it appeared to many that Rick would never again pitch in the majors. At least the odds were against him.
Cardinals Head Team Physician, Dr. George Paletta and Dr. James Andrews agreed in 2002 that a non-surgical approach was an appropriate plan of action and that Ankiel should not throw for the rest of the season. It was then the familiar images of Ankiel setting in the stands with his arm in a big white sling next to his super star agent Scott Boras, that those images became etched in our collective memories. The once great hope and promise of the young left-hander seemed so distant.
It was like a lifetime, and yet it was only two years earlier in the 2000 season, that Ankiel finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year voting. Going 11-7 with a 3.50 ERA in the regular season, the fan favorite, with a blazing fastball combined with a good change up and curve ball, had it all and it seemed like the kid was destined to a Hall of Fame type career.
It wasn't until December of 2002, that he was cleared to begin throwing. Give him credit, he has heart, he has guts and you have to respect that. Before it's all over, he'll need both, because it will still be almost two more years before his next major league appearance.
The Cardinals started Ankiel at Tennessee, their double A affiliate during the 2003 season. It was here that the Cardinals and I parted ways, in the handling of the kid.
Early on in spring training I called for the Cardinals to send Rick to Tennessee to start the season. I have long since deleted all those e-mails from my in-box that told me that I was out of my mind, that the Cardinals would never consider sending their top prospect all the way down to AA ball. You could imagine my delight when the word came the Cardinals were sending Ankiel to the Smokies to start the season, not so much that I was right, I'm use to that, but because it was the right thing to do for Ankiel.
My delight was short lived. In Tennessee, the Cardinals began using Ankiel out of the bullpen. In my opinion, the only way Ankiel was going to get back, was to pitch his way back and this wasn't going to happen with him coming out of the bullpen a couple of times a week. My plan, and suggestion, was to send the kid out there every 5th day and make him pitch five innings minimum, no matter what the consequences. If you have to, you eat a few AA losses to get Ankiel back in the form that made him a runner up in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2000.
It took a while, but the Cardinals finally came around to my way of thinking, and Ankiel moved into the Smokies rotation and in 10 starts, along with 10 relief appearances, his record was 2-6, with a 6.29 ERA, before he had season ending Tommy John surgery in July. After missing all of the 2002 season, he was now forced to miss the second half of the 2003 season.
The road back to the majors must have seemed a million miles long to Rick, as he was moved into the operating room. The experts and pundits from everywhere were all writing the kid from Florida off, the odds were against him.
The 2004 season came around less than a year after Ankiel underwent ligament transplant surgery (Tommy John surgery) for his left elbow. It looked like Ankiel was going to miss another whole season. Early reports that he might be back by mid season seemed a little optimistic. He did get back into game competition in August, making six minor league rehab starts. Three with Palm Beach (A), two with Tennessee (AA) and a start with Memphis (AAA). It appeared that Ankiel may be rounding the corner on his way home back to St. Louis and the fans were waiting with open arms.
On Sept. 7 he made his first big league appearance since May 10, 2001, pitching a shutout sixth inning in San Diego. He picked up a relief win on Oct. 1 by going four strong innings. It was Ankiel's first win since April 8, 2001 and it was enough for some fans to call on Cardinals Manager Tony LaRussa to include Ankiel on the Cardinals post season roster when left hander Steve Kline, another fan favorite, was left off the World Series roster because of an injury. not added to the post season roster, Ankiel watch the World Series from the dugout ,and was looking forward to pitching in winter ball and starting the 2005 season on the Cardinals roster.
The 2005 season holds much promise for the Cardinals and the return to post season play seems to be a reasonable expectation for this team, and then there is the return of their favorite son, Rick Ankiel, or so we hope.
Breaking news in December sent shivers through Cardinal Nation when we received reports that Ankiel was again injured. You could hear the collective moans and groans across Cardinal Nation, as the word spread like wild fire that Rick Ankiel was shut down because he had experienced some discomfort in his left arm after his December 18th start with the Gigantes del Carolina, in the Puerto Rican Winter League.
With the news of Ankiel's latest arm problems, the latest twist of fate in Ankiel's road on his comeback, like the constant extreme hazardous weather sweeping across the nation, Cardinal fans had to be wondering, what else can go wrong?
In 27.2 innings of winter ball, Ankiel was 1-1 with a 3.25 ERA and a 31/7 K/BB ratio. He appeared on his way back and at just 25 years of age, there was still hope that he could live up to the early promise of his career. And now this.
The popular left-hander missed his last scheduled start for the Gigantes del Carolina and was ordered home in December as a precaution and for examination. Ankiel had been expected to be ready to start spring training this season on time. The former starter is slated to work out of the bullpen this season but may be pushed into starting because Matt Morris isn't expected to be ready to pitch until early May.
At this time the official word is, Ankiel will be ready to start the season on time. He is quoted as saying when asked about his arm "It seems to be fine now."
"It seems to be fine", words that don't necessarily inspire confidence.
But no matter what, this kid has already beaten all the odds to get back this far.
My money is on Ankiel, "Against all Odds."
