Posted on 08/17/2007 4:30:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- In the fable, the farm boy phenom makes his way to the big city to amaze the world with his arm. At a stop at a fair on the train ride to Chicago, he strikes out the Babe Ruth of his time on three blazing pitches. Enter the Dark Lady. Before he can reach the stadium for his tryout, she shoots him and leaves him for dead.
It is 16 years later and Roy Hobbs returns, but now as a hitter and outfielder. (He can never pitch again because of the wound.) He leads his team to improbable glory, ending the tale with a titanic home run that, in the now-iconic movie image, explodes the stadium lights in a dazzling cascade of white.
In real life, the kid doesn't look like Robert Redford, but he throws like Roy Hobbs: unhittable, unstoppable. In his rookie year, appropriately the millennial year 2000, he throws it by everyone. He pitches the St. Louis Cardinals to a division title, playing so well that his manager anoints him starter for the opening game of the playoffs, a position of honor and -- for 21-year-old Rick Ankiel -- fatal exposure.
His collapse is epic. He can't find the plate. In the third inning he walks four batters and throws five wild pitches (something not seen since 1890) before Manager Tony La Russa mercifully takes him out of the game.
The kid is never the same. He never recovers his control. Five miserable years in the minors trying to come back. Injuries. Operations. In 2005, he gives up pitching forever.
Then last week, on Aug. 9, he is called up from Triple-A. Same team. Same manager. Rick Ankiel is introduced to a roaring Busch Stadium crowd as the Cardinals' starting right fielder
In the seventh inning, with two outs, he hits a three-run home run to seal the game for the Cardinals. Two days later, he hits two home runs and makes one of the great catches of the year -- over the shoulder, back to the plate, full speed.
But the play is more than spectacular. It is poignant. It was an amateur's catch. Ankiel ran a slightly incorrect route to the ball. A veteran outfielder would have seen the ball tailing to the right. But pitchers aren't trained to track down screaming line drives over their heads. Ankiel was running away from home plate but slightly to his left. Realizing at the last second that he had run up the wrong prong of a Y, he veered sharply to the right, falling and sliding into the wall as he reached for the ball over the wrong shoulder.
He made the catch. The crowd, already delirious over the two home runs, came to its feet. If this had been a fable, Ankiel would have picked himself up and walked out of the stadium into the waiting arms of the lady in white -- Glenn Close in a halo of light -- never to return.
But this is real life. Ankiel is only 28 and will continue to play. The magic cannot continue. If he is lucky, he'll have the career of an average right fielder. But it doesn't matter. His return after seven years -- if only three days long -- is the stuff of legend. Made even more perfect by the timing: Just two days after Barry Bonds sets a synthetic home run record in San Francisco, the Natural returns to St. Louis.
Right after that first game, La Russa called Ankiel's return the Cardinals' greatest joy in baseball "short of winning the World Series." This, from a manager (as chronicled in George Will's classic "Men at Work") not given to happy talk. La Russa is the ultimate baseball logician, driven by numbers and stats. He may be more machine than man, but he confessed at the postgame news conference: "I'm fighting my butt off to keep it together."
Translation: I'm trying like hell to keep from bursting into tears at the resurrection of a young man who seven years ago dissolved in front of my eyes. La Russa was required to "keep it together" because, as codified most succinctly by Tom Hanks (in "A League of Their Own"), "There's no crying in baseball."
But there can be redemption. And a touch of glory.
Ronald Reagan, I was once told, said he liked "The Natural" except that he didn't understand why the Dark Lady shoots Roy Hobbs. Reagan, the preternatural optimist, may have had difficulty fathoming tragedy, but no one knows why Hobbs is shot. It is fate, destiny, nemesis. Perhaps the dawning of knowledge, the coming of sin. Or more prosaically, the catastrophe that awaits everyone from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter. Every life has such a moment. What distinguishes us is whether -- and how -- we ever come back.
I live in St Louis. When Rick Ankiel hit that first homer last week, I don’t believe there was a dry eye in the city. Even Tony said that it was the second most emotional moment of his career. Number one? World Series.
Wonder Boy!
Cool story!
Krauthammer has the Natural a little wrong though. Hobbs did pitch again and re-aggravated his wound to where he would never be able to after that last game. But by then, he had achieved what he needed to.
No matter who wins the WS, this is the story of the year. This kid should be held up as an example of hard work and determination.
What a great story. Thanks for the post!
In the film Hobbs returns as a hitter, not a pitcher. He does pitch once more actually....though only in a practice.
You’re welcome
He was pitching that last game though. Remember the blood on the side of his shirt?
I do remember he returning as a hitter. But I thought he pitched as well.
I retract this statement. Looks like I was remembering wrong. He had the blood on his shirt as a hitter.
I was privileged to be present at three games in 1982 -- one playoff and two world series games, including the final winner.
I remember when Ankiel was traded, and I felt really bad about it. He had such joy in his playing of the game. This is truly a story that needs to be told and re-told. It what makes baseball the American game.
Maybe he will have the career of that former pitcher, Babe Ruth.
Always enjoy a Krauthammer post — interesting that it wasn’t George Will writing about this as he quite often comments on baseball. Definitely an inspiring story...
In the Book the Natural Roy Hobbs actually takes the bribe and tanks the game
I guess Malamud didn’t like happy endings but Hollywood changed it to one
“No matter who wins the WS, this is the story of the year. This kid should be held up as an example of hard work and determination.”
Through all of this and during his pitching days, Rick’s dad was in prison for drugs. Had a crummy childhood, Tony and Dunc took him under their wings. Knowing Tony’s management style, this was not a gift to Rick. Rick earned every bit of this.
If it had been George Will it would have been a turgid indigestible mass of verbosity leading to reader catatonia. I like Will, his heart is usually in the Right place, but sometimes...
Krauthammer is one of those bright people that came over from the dark side, originally he wrote for the New Republic back when it was a high quality, intellectually honest magazine of opinion and commentary, not the hack-Left bird cage liner it became under Michael Kinsley’s editorial stewardship.
I sure do miss Ozzie’s pre-game show. Those flips and gymnastics were worth the price of admission.
NOTHING LIKE A CARDINAL’S FAN.
Charles Krauthammer writing about the Cardinals.
I’m in heaven.
I wonder what this guy drinks with roasted crow?
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/rick-ankiel-ex-pitcher/
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