A Much-Needed Feel-Good

Let's face it, this is a pretty depressing time in sports right now. If we're not arguing about steroids and home run records in baseball, we're pontificating about all the legal issues the NFL has to deal with or betting scandals in an already pointless game -- the NBA.

Then there's that overpaid British guy who, until last night, decided he was too pansy to go running around a wide-open field (oh, I'm sorry ... pitch) with a slightly sprained ankle. Mr. Beckham, there was a guy the other day who pitched five innings for the Colorado Rockies with a broken leg. Get with it, ya ponce.

Where's a feel-good story when we need one? Something we can look at and smile about and feel good about being sports fans again?

Well, look no further than St. Louis, where last night Rick Ankiel made his return to the Major Leagues. Not as the highly-touted pitcher he was prior to going 11-7 in his rookie year of 2000 with a 3.50 ERA, but as an outfielder.

Anyone who follows baseball knows that Ankiel, for all his pitching talent, imploded in the 2000 playoffs, at one point throwing nine wild pitches in one game and completely losing command of the strike zone. It's happened to some of the best -- Atlanta's Mark Wohlers comes to mind -- and although it looked a few times in the minors Ankiel would get it back, he never quite did.

So in 2005, he announced he'd become a full-time outfielder. And despite my reservations about this move, I hoped it would work out, because I never like to see a guy completely lose it the way Ankiel did.

Thirty-two home runs this year in AAA ... yeah, that's all fine and dandy, but it's AAA.

Last night Ankiel got his call-up to the Cardinals, receiving the standing ovation he so richly deserved after years of struggle and perseverance. Most guys would've folded after the meltdown he had in the playoffs, but Ankiel kept at it. He worked and worked and worked, and once he found that pitching was no longer his calling, he found a new outlet and he worked and worked at that, too.

Things started off innocently enough -- a pop out in the first, a strikeout in the third and again in the fifth -- but in the seventh, Ankiel gave the Busch Stadium crowd -- and I have to admit, me -- goosebumps. Taking a hack at a pitch so low and outside I'm still not quite sure how he hit it, Ankiel took the ball over the right field fence.

Home run. To borrow a famous line, I don't believe what I just saw.

It wasn't Ankiel's first big-league blast -- he had two as a pitcher in 2000 -- but still ... for him to have the struggles he did and to come back like this is a tremendous story. Manager Tony LaRussa strikes me as a stoic man, but seeing him getting excited and even bordering on emotional over Ankiel's return only served to hammer home the moment even more.

I'm not sure how Ankiel's career will unfold from here, but the simple fact that he rose from the proverbial baseball ashes and tweaked his game to better suit -- and keep alive -- his career tells me this is a guy who could be successful. I don't know it he'll ever be a .300, 35 HR, 90 RBI kinda guy, but whatever he can give the Cardinals at this point is a bonus -- both for them and for him.

Cause six, seven years ago, this looked like a career that had flamed out.

It's nice to see stories like Ankiel's pop up in the midst of the scandal and controversy. We've seen in the past couple months everything wrong with sports, and here's a shining example of what can be right with them.