RICK "THE NATURAL" ANKIEL

Wasn't there already a movie about this guy?  2 months ago I bought a movie that has always been one of my favorite movies, The Natural.  Considered by many as the greatest sports movies ever.  Starring Robert Redford, the movie is about an up and coming young ball player, Roy Hobbs, a pitcher no less, who is destined for stardom.  But, consequently as the result of some unfortunate circumstances, Roy's dreams of the big leagues become shattered by a bullet and his career all but a memory.  Then many years later, out of options, Roy finds himself playing baseball again where he is noticed and put on the roster of a lowly struggling New York Knights. 

While playing in New York, Roy raises eyebrows with his towering mistifying shots that seem to hover into the stratusphere as if the ball was meant to orbit the earth.  The games continue to get more signficant and the homers more dramatic as the film goes.  The films ending creates the legend of Roy Hobbs in dramatic fashion as Roy's achievement seems to finally help him come to terms with himself and with life. 

Then, there's RICK ANKIEL....a young up and coming pitcher just 20 years young asked to pitch in a major playoff game on national television.  The pressure proved to be too much as his pitchs sailed everywhere but over the plate.  Rick would not win another major league game as a pitcher.  To help amend his struggles the Cardinals would send Rick back down to the minors to gain some confidence and earn his way back up.  But, Rick could never find the control.  Then finally in 2005, through many frustrating and heartbreaking performances and a journey of pure mental fatigue, Rick decided to hang up his cleats and call it a career. 

As Rick sat at home his phone rang and it was Walt Jocketty on the other end, the Cardinals General Manager.  Walt asked Rick to give it a one more go, but this time as a position player.  Rick had shown great pop with his bat for a pitcher and Walt wanted to give the kid another chance.  All of Cardinal nation wanted to give the kid another chance.  So in 2006 Rick reported to Memphis as a position player only to blow out his knee early on.  It was a season ending injury.

Then, in 2007 Rick reported to AAA Memphis where he would hit 32 homeruns before the Cardinals would call him up to play late in August with just a little over a month of the season left to play.  A movie script couldn't have been written any better as Rick came to bat in St. Louis. A crowd's standing ovation roared from the bleachers welcoming Rick back to the big leagues.  Then, as if on cue, Rick would send his a homerun into right field on his first game as a position player in the big leagues.

Today I just saw Rick hit 2 homeruns to give him 9 on the year.  He is averaging a homerun roughly every 9 at bats!  Babe Ruth averaged a homerun every 10.6 atbats, Albert Pujols career average is every 14 at bats.  It's a number that may not last, but HOORAY Rick Ankiel! HOORAY the never say die human spirit!

Men and Sports...It's gotta be genetic

Above:  Rex Grossman of the Chicago Bears and Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts.

Regina says sports is like the man "soap opera."  Maybe she's right?  Nothing quite sets up a game like all the underlining human interest stories that surround the game. 

For instance, Chicago's head coach Lovie Smith growing up poor with an alcholic father deep in rural Texas and aspiring to heights no one would have ever thought.  The guy got to coach his highschool football team as a linebacker his junior year, because the coach had to attend a funeral! 

Also, this year will be the first time an Afro-American head coach will have successfully lead his team and won the superbowl.  I believe the first quarterback was Washington's Doug Williams and he won the superbowl's MVP at that.

Colts running back Joseph Addai, plans on running hard inspired by his paralyzed friend Lajuan Moore. 

Bears corner back Nathan Vasher's mom suffers from such a severe case of bipolarism and agoraphobia that she can't leave the house to go see her son play.

Lesser stories are those of NFL icon, Peyton Manning,  and the superbowl's elusion of the Colts until now, and that of Rex Grossman, who is still maturing as a leader/quarterback and has played games everywhere from ridiculously pathetic to amazingly poised throughout his career.

The Bears are the underdogs, but the Colts aren't exactly a "goliath" jugernaut either.

I can't even imagine what it'd be like to play in the superbowl.  These guys have worked very hard to get there.  It reminds me of playing football in highschool.  The sticky hot "two a days" under the swelting gleaming August sun.  School hadn't even started yet.  But there we were, spending several hours a day under that wicked August sun, learning how to block, tackle, run plays, and be tough. 

We'd run so hard we'd throw up during or after an exercise and simply keep going.  Throwing up meant dedication.  We wanted to prove to that to our coaches and teammates.  After practice I'd be brusied, sore, cut, and just dog tired.  I can still remember coach "Nez" (Nesbitt) talking to us.  "It's your team gentleman...You decide how much it gonna take to beat Jeff City this year..." oh my goodness!  I can still feel it now.  My muscles flexing, jaw tightening up, a low growl whispering under my breathe, eyes glaring at those images of Jefferson City uniforms burned in my memory.  Yeah, we're rivals with Rock Bridge, but Jeff City, son, that's a whole different level.

When he said those words..."Jeff City,"  we'd run through a brick wall and run all night if he'd have let us.  Too many times in our history of Hickman football had our playoff runs ended at district title games against Jeff City.  And too many times Jeff City had went on to win the "beloved" state title.  Basically that was the highschool superbowl.

Coach Nez was a good coach.  He'd make you wanna eat glass and you'd think it was good for ya.  I also remember him saying during some of the roughest practices..."smile, you choose to be here."  Coach Nez rarely had to be mean.  He had the psychology down so good he didn't have to be.  He only did it when an example had to be made.  One day, I was that example.

Coach wasn't an imposing force when you looked at him.  Certainly not like barrel chested mountain sized man Coach Salley, who had played in the Superbowl with the New York Giants or like coach "Lue" who had the most coldest blue eyes that could cut through the toughest steel.  Man, a glare from this man and you'd act right for a week.  You didn't joke around coach Lue, nothing seemed funny to him. 

But coached Nez, he'd joke with ya, ask about your family, grades, all that good stuff.  He was a "player's coach."  He was like 5' 10" about 185.  Average dude.  But what wasn't average was his voice.  I found that out the day I became "the example."

I was a sophmore and on the junior varsity.  I was playing Tight end.  Coach Nez usually didn't work with us, but this day he decided to give us a little extra attention.  We were working on a play (the name escapes now) where I was supposed to double team the Defensive end and then scrape off to block the Linebacker.  It was totally about timing, b/c the Runningback was behind you and you didn't exactly know when to release and go to the Linebacker.  To this day I still think I was set up. 

The first few times running this play it was like clockwork.  The offensive tackle and I double teamed the D-end and I released to the linebacker.  5 yards, 6 yards, 8 yards... The D-end was playing soft, so I thought I'd let the Tackle next to me block our dude and I'd go straight to the L-backer and we'd spring a big run.  Coach would love it!

The next time the play came up I planned to unleash my genius.  As we lined up to the ball I snickered inside at how great of an idea this was going to be.  In an instant I heard the first sylable of the second hu in "hut" and I was off the line like a rocket.  I barely grazed the left side of the D-end's shoulder pads and like a lion stalking its prey I headed low and fast for the middle linebacker.  I was gonna take his head off. 

When I found the Linebacker he must of saw the glare in my eye because he slid stepped my enough to avoid the unleashing detonation. But alas, success, I thwarted his pursuit long enough that the running back had to be blowing through the secondary by now. 

I looked down field and instead of the seeing defensive backs running away, they were running up.  Running up towards the huge hole that the tackle and i should of made.  I looked back to where I had came and saw the number of the jersey of the D-end getting up from on top of a smeared runningback.  S*** I thought to myself.  It was apparent that the D-end had surprised the runningback, and slammed him, b/c that's pretty much the only way to end up on your back going through a hole.  The Tackle wasn't able to make the block himself.

Coach marched onto the field and made a b-line right for me.  As he approached I could see him formulating his thoughts and trying to hold back his displeasure.  As he approached me, he calmly asked me a straight forward question..."Did you double down on the D-end?" 

The moment to which I answered was only but a second, a thousand thoughts raced through my mind.  Well, I kinda did.  My jersey did in fact touch his as I passed him by.  Did he not see my get the L-backer?  Maybe the running back mess up.  Did the tackle even block?  I hope I have time to get ice cream after practice.  Is everybody watching me?  I wonder if he saw me in the play?  "Yes." I answered.

Coach turned his head and aimed his attention to the offensive line.  The Right Tackle to be exact.  "Did he help block the end?"  He'll tell him I did.  How my jersey grazed the D-end's.  He's my teammate he'll back me up.  I mean the verb "block" is actually pretty subjective.  It could mean to knock down a ball, to stand in the way of, to clobber, or in my case to barely graze the opponents jersey. "No."  Oh crap...

If I wasn't sure Coach Nez was mad then, I was sure now.  It was like the switch of Dr. Jeckel had just been flipped to Mr. Hyde.  When he turned his head towards me I swear I thought it was the Devil himself.  He took two steps, leaned into me, eyes a blazing, and began to speak.  You know when someone is about to yell when you see their neck muscles clench up.  Then, like a deafening hurricane, a furious thunder erupted from the bellows of his being and he yelled, screamed, thundered, resounded, roared, "DON'T YOU EVER LIE TO ME! DON'T YOU EVER, EVER LIE TO ME AGAIN!"

His body snapped as he turned back into Dr. Jeckel glaring at the whole team as he assumed his position on the sidelines.  I literally almost pissed my pants.  I thought the man was going to rip my arm off and eat it.  Some of you who read this may be horrified at my experience.  But, it served me a good life lesson. 

No, it's not to never play football.  But, it's to maintain your integrity all times.  Not just because people are watching, but because people are counting on you, trusting you, to do what you said you'll do.  In the game of life, just like football, it's hard to succeed without trusting those around you.  We need to be able to trust those around us to have them be able to trust us.

dont delete old pics?

Baseball pants...ridiculous!

 All I want is relaxed fitting baseball pants without the scrunchy cuffs at the bottoms.  All kinds of major league baseball players have them.  But can the avg. joe find them? NO!  If anyone wants to make a million bucks here's your chance.  I've fiercely scoured the web searching for these pants and to no avail, I've come up empty handed.

Ronnie Belliard                                                            Preston Wilson

Man...Ronnie, whose your taylor?

IRAQ...It's sticky man.

Lots of people are talking about Iraq and we should be.  A friend of mine in the military recently posted about "Top 10 Myths of the Iraq War."  Here's the address if your interested.

http://www.xanga.com/TheGoldenEagle