Talking about Rick Ankiel and how his pitching career met an unlikely hurdle
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00:00How did a birthday gift cause MLB's top prospect to forget how to pitch?
00:03In the late 90s, Rick Ankeel quickly rose the ranks to become one of baseball's top pitching prospects for the St. Louis Cardinals.
00:10In his first full seasons in the majors in 2000, at just 20 years old, Ankeel made his mark, going 11-7 with a .350 ERA, striking out 194 batters in just 175 innings.
00:21For his efforts, he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, helping the Cardinals win the NL Central.
00:26Due to his success, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa decided to name Rick Ankeel the Game 1 starter against the Braves in the NLDS.
00:33Everything was lining up for Rick Ankeel to make a name for himself in baseball's biggest stage.
00:38Except for one thing.
00:39You see, a few days before the playoffs began, the Cardinals announced that their starting catcher, Mike Matheny, would miss the rest of the season for a very dumb reason.
00:47For his birthday, Matheny had gotten a hunting knife, and as he was putting it back in the sheath, it went right through, severing two flexor tendons and a nerve.
00:56Matheny was known at the time as one of the best defensive catchers in the league, winning his first of four gold gloves that season.
01:02So for the biggest game in Rick Ankeel's career at just 21 years old, he would have to use Carlos Hernandez as his battery mate.
01:09And for the first two innings of the game, things looked to be normal.
01:12The Cardinals would take a 6-0 lead heading into the third inning.
01:14And the third inning is when everything would change for Ankeel.
01:17With one on and one out, Ankeel would throw a curveball that would get by Hernandez, a ball that, according to Ankeel, a better defensive catcher like Matheny would have caught.
01:26After that, Ankeel would unravel, throwing four more wild pitches that inning, tying the record for most in a playoff inning.
01:33Ankeel would get pulled with two outs that inning, finishing his day with six walks and more balls than strikes.
01:38Ankeel would make his next start in Game 2 of the NLCS vs. the Mets.
01:41And things would still go poorly for Ankeel, going two-thirds of an inning, giving up three walks in two runs, and throwing two more wild pitches.
01:50Ankeel would be demoted to the bullpen for the rest of the series, having one more wild appearance in Game 5.
01:55After that, Ankeel would have one of the worst-case-of-the-yips in baseball history.
02:00The next season, Ankeel would walk 25 batters in 24 innings before getting sent down to AAA, where his problems still persisted.
02:07After missing a full season recovering from Tommy John surgery, Ankeel wouldn't return to the majors,
02:11until 2004, where he would just pitch five games out of the bullpen.
02:15After the 0-4 season, Ankeel would announce that he would be making the transition away from pitching to become an outfielder.
02:21Which he successfully did, and would end up carving a career for himself as a plus defensive outfielder, lasting six seasons.
02:27But who knows what kind of career Rick Ankeel would have had if Mike Matheny hadn't received a hunting knife for his birthday.