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THE YIPS
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Bernie Williams loves shredding on the guitar.
Let's dive in.
Today's story is about the rise, fall, and rebirth of a ballplayer.
I wouldn’t wish the yips on my worst enemy.
In case you’ve never heard the term, Urban Dictionary defines it as "a sudden and unexplained loss of skills in experienced athletes."
Most commonly experienced by golfers, baseball players, and even gymnasts.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, John Lester, and Daniel Bard are a few examples of ballplayers who have been victims over the years.
The yips even caused Chuck Knoblauch to airmail a baseball into the face of Keith Olbermann's mother.
Steve Sax got the yips so badly in ‘83 that they were calling it “Steve Sax Syndrome” - he committed 30 errors that season.
While all of these cases were pretty bad, no one had it worse than Rick Ankiel.
Rick started playing baseball at a young age and became a pitcher pretty early on.
By the time he got to high school, Rick was the top pitcher in Florida; he was named the High School Player of the Year by USA Today in '97.
His senior year, Ankiel absolutely manhandled his competition.
By the time the season was over, he had an 11-1 record with 162K's and a 0.47 ERA.
It was basically the equivalent of Carlos from Bench Warmers pitching against little leaguers.
The Cardinals drafted Ankiel in the second round that year and gave him a $2.5 million signing bonus.
He continued to dominate in the minors, recording 222 K's in his rookie season.
By August of '99, he was in the Big Leagues.
In '00, Ankiel posted an 11-7 record in 30 starts, and Tony La Russa gave him the nod for Game 1 of the NLDS against the Braves.
The Cards started the game on fire, putting up six runs against Greg Maddux in the first inning.
So presumably, the nerves and pressure from starting his first playoff game, should have eased up a bit.
But on his 44th pitch, in the third inning, Ankiel bounced a curveball and the rest was history.
The next pitch, Rick and his catcher got crossed up, then the next delivery went off the backstop on the fly.
Not going to lie, it's tough to watch.
Ankiel became the first player in history to throw five wild pitches in a single inning since Bert Cunningham in 1890.
After the score became 6-4, La Russa came out of the dugout and finally stopped the madness.
The Cards ended up sweeping the Braves in that series, so Ankiel didn't have to pitch again until Game 2 of the NLCS.
He didn't make it out of the first inning.
In the years after this incident, St. Louis tried a ton of different tactics to get Ankiel back to feeling like himself, but nothing worked.
Ultimately, Rick told the team he was going to retire in '04, but Scott Boras spoke with the Cardinals GM, and they decided to give Ankiel a shot in the minors, as an outfielder.
Three years later, he was back in the Big Leagues, and he stayed there.
Ankiel played six more seasons, racked up almost 2,000 AB's, and finished his career with 76 dingers.
Here's a glorious video of Ankiel hosing out runners from Centerfield.
SWEET SEATS
Nothing better than spending an afternoon at the diamond, but these days it can get a little pricey.
That’s why Seatgeek is giving Dead Legends subscribers $20 off your next trip to the ballpark.
I like using their platform because it sorts tickets based on the best deals.
Use our code DEADLEGENDS to redeem the deal.
STRANGE NAMES
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
Bumpus only made 8 appearance in major league appearances.
In his first outing, he threw a no hitter.
After that he was pretty much terrible; in less than a year, he was out of the Big Leagues.
He remains the only player in Major League history to pitch a no-hitter in his first game.
THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE
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