Thursday, August 9, 2007

Wild Thing Returns

Former Cards pitcher Richard Ankiel is back in the bigs...as an outfielder. He's 0-3 as of right now. No word yet if he's launched multiple throws 14 feet wide of the cutoff men.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

He hit a 3 run bomb. Look out for the Cardinals.

Anonymous said...

This was the greatest hr of the year! Right after I searched ebay for a Rick Ankiel jersey, I spoke with a friend about the strikingly similar parallels between Ankiel and the fictional Roy Hobbs. Here goes, both lefty/lefty pitchers protaganists underwent early adversity with their fathers (Ankiel's father did jail time, while Hobb's father died of a heart attack. Both Hobbs and Ankiel were slam bang pitching prospects before they were shot (Ankiel was figuratively shot down by the media((Krey)), we all know why Hobbs was actually shot). Plagued by injuries, both Hobbs were forced to take alternate paths as outfielders to the bigs from the "Hebrew Oilers" and Triple A Memphis. Interestingly enough, both Hobbs and Ankiel win playing time because the player they replace, Bump Bailey and Juan Encarnacion respectively, fails to hustle. Are we going to see Encarnacion run through a wall to his death? Doubtful. I also doubt that LaRussa has ever thought that he should have been a farmer. Though Ankiel did not "knock the cover of the ball," he did homer in his first game back and hit two more big ones today. What remains to be unseen, however, is if Ankiel will spark the Cardinals as much as Hobbs sparked the New York Knights. Moreover, Ankiel has the attention of the bat-boy, but will probably not make a "Savoy Special." If the Cardinals do manage to pull out the NL Central, it will be attributed to the stellar play of Rick Ankiel and be held in the hearts of Roy Hobbs fans around the nation.
(Krey #2)

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Ankiel gets the same kind of tail that Hobbs did or if he has any kids that he doesn't know about. Probably