"Nice Velocity. Sounded Like it."
I read
this article this morning about Rick Ankiel. For those of you who don't remember or have never heard of Rick Ankiel, he was the melt down kid of the 2000 playoffs. He was this young country boy with a rocket for an arm. He was a lefty that threw in the mid-90's, and unless you are Randy Johnson, you know that's rare. He was a natural athlete who made it to the big leagues, as a pitcher, probably the toughest of the young paths. He came out in the playoffs that year and threw balls to the middle of the backstop screen and behind hitters and in dugouts. It was painful to watch.
So what caused Rick Ankiel's break down?
No one can really pinpoint the mind set of an athlete, much less a baseball player. Other sports, outside of golf, rely heavily on physical ability and moment to moment - flow of the game decisions. In baseball every physical feat is isolated. Every swing has a minute in between the next one, the same goes for every pitch. You have time to sit and think and get terrified by your own ability to not be perfect.
Most major leaguers, college players, and even good high school players have been playing the game for most of their lives and hence have developed amazing muscle memory. Their body and ego rely on this muscle memory to outthink their own brain and put the trust, as they say from baseball benches everywhere, "In your hands." If they develop this muscle memory to such a fine tune how is it possible to repeatedly screw up on a monstrous level?
Unfortunately, the muscle memory sometimes isn't enough. The ability to repeat the same process with minor tweaks along the way sometimes isn't enough to overcome your own head. I had it happen to me once.
I was 15 and playing Junior Varsity baseball at my high school. I was a decent player for my age. I played on state teams that played on National levels every year. Most of the guys I played with at the time went on to play college and pro baseball. I hit in the 3 hole on those teams and started in the outfield. So to summarize, I wasn't a spaz. But, for two weeks in the month of May I was bewildered.
During this two week span I had what golfers call "the shanks". I would step into the batter's box, look out at the pitcher and get ready to swing. My whole life I had said to myself while hitting, "Crush this ball. Attack the ball. Hit the ball up the middle and kill the pitcher." For some reason this time when I stepped into the box I looked out and said, "Don't strike out. Don't embarrass yourself." Now there were no mitigating circumstances leading up to this. This was not a championship game, and I had not been hit in the head by a pitch nor was I meandering in a long slump. I simply looked out there one day and didn't feel as sturdy in my legs. My hands felt sluggish the morning of the game and the hat on my head seemed to slip down into my line of sight. There were little things that built up into a different state of mind. So too, I believe is the case with Rick Ankiel. And so has been the case with dozens of major leaguers, such as Chuck Knoblauch, Steve Sax, John Kruk, etc... These players weren't pitchers, hell they weren't even hitting. They simply couldn't throw the ball to first, or bring themselves to step into the batter's box anymore. They had a mental meltdown.
Now my two week stint doesn't compare in scope or in time to that of Ankiel or those other guys. Hell, their careers ended because of that. The just could not get up in the morning and get over the mental hurdle. I'm sure they were sent to psychologists and therapists but none of that matters. Your body only knows what to do as it is doing it, you can't prepare yourself in a state of calm when a 90 mph fastball comes down on you or when 60 thousand fans are screaming and you want to throw the ball to first. Maybe some people's minds simply can't handle the stress after a little while. Maybe they just crack and can never be glued back together.
Rick Ankiel's inability to throw the ball over the plate could be because of dozens of things. His wife could have been knocked up, he could have a sick mother, he could have seen the devil, who knows. The point is that it happens to most baseball players at some point. You have a problem playing catch. You can't seem to see the ball when you hit. It's such a mental game that the idea of throwing a 4 inch diameter ball over a 3 foot plate 60 feet away with a 6'3" 240 pound monster hanging over that plate waiting to hit it 700 feet can be intimidating. That thought could drive you to quirky things, not to mention the 55 thousand fans screaming and hoping that you do anything interesting, even if it is throwing the ball over the backstop.
So eventually, I snapped out of my slump and went on to a successful career. I came to the plate one day two weeks later, my legs felt strong, my hands felt quick and my eyes saw the ball coming up at me like a watermelon once again. It all comes back to you eventually. When you spend your whole life repeating an action to the point of perfection then eventually your body will reward you with the ability to fulfill you destiny. So it will be with Rick Ankiel. I know a bunch of people will be watching him this year as he makes his return hoping he'll throw one over the backstop, but I am rooting for this one time "wonder kid" to come out and sit down the side one last time, just like he must have a done a thousand times in his head and a dozen times when he was playing JV baseball somewhere.
