The Phenomenon

by Rick Ankiel

  The policeman turned around.

  “Laugh it up,” he said. “Some big ol’ guy named Bubba’s gonna be waiting for you. Gonna change your name to Sweet Cheeks.”

  Oh, my God, I thought. Oh, my God. I didn’t want to be anybody’s Sweet Cheeks, and certainly not Bubba’s.

  We left the gas station (no donuts for us), and when we arrived at the police station, my father pulled in behind us. He half walked, half ran to the open door, reached in, and grabbed a couple fistfuls of my shirt, my arms pinned behind my back.

  I spent the night in a holding cell. Never did meet Bubba. There’d be court hearings, probation, restitution. I wrote letters to the owners of the car lots, apologizing for my deeds. Before that, I came out of jail, squinting through the midmorning light to my waiting parents. I half didn’t want to go.

  “Don’t ever fuck up again,” my father said and cuffed my head.

  Even then, at thirteen, with almost zero perspective on a world beyond a sidewalk outside a police station in a little Florida beach town where the locals really should’ve locked up their stereos, I couldn’t help but think, Ain’t that rich.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  I saw the catcher’s mitt. I heard nothing. Early on, I heard my father droning from the bleachers or railing from the backstop. Now I heard nothing. I felt the ball in my hand.

  Thinking, but not really thinking, I’m going to put the ball right there.

  When it was right, I was in touch with everything. A nick on the surface of the ball under my thumb. A dangling lace from the catcher’s mitt. A gob of mud under my left spike, under the foot from which I’d drive from the rubber.

  As if I weren’t playing the game exactly but was part of the game itself. I was the heartbeat, the pulse that kept everything else moving, the game flowing all around and through me. And I was the part that was going to take that baseball and blow it by hitters who thought they knew better. I had the fastball to do it. I had the beginnings of the curveball. I had this knuckleball I thought was pretty clever. I had the resolve.

  Always had, really. From the time I was old enough to recognize the difference between a good ballplayer and a better one, I knew in my heart I was the latter. I was small, probably too small at first, but I didn’t care.

  It’s why I would pull my shoulders back the way I did and walk with the confidence I did. It’s why my eyes, my grandfather’s eyes, would sear a hole straight through a batter’s chest, and I would harden that with a casualness; the way I held the ball loose in my hand, the way I set my feet softly over the rubber, the way I’d soar into my windup and finish it with a look that said, That’s the way it was supposed to end.

  It started in my backyard and on the dirt tracks of Fort Pierce. It started in Port St. Lucie Little League and over at Sportsman’s Park on Prima Vista Boulevard. It started at Port St. Lucie High School, home of the Jaguars, under head coach John Messina, class of ’97, where I was USA Today’s national player of the year, where I was 11–1 with an 0.47 ERA and struck out 162 batters in 74 innings (of the 222 outs I registered that senior season, 60 did not come by strikeout), where nobody ever hit more home runs, where the last swing of my career launched a 420-foot home run, where no one will ever again wear the number 24, and where a coach once said, “I don’t think I’ll ever see another one like him.” It was where Coach Messina taught me how to be a ballplayer, or as much as one could be as a teenager. It started with my turning down a scholarship offer from the University of Miami to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals for $2.5 million, and then with my becoming Baseball America’s eighteenth-best prospect after the 1997 season, second-best prospect after the 1998 season, and top prospect after the 1999 season.

  When I was in high school and a magazine reported that I was on the chubby side for a top-end prospect, I ran. When my family went for dinner at the local burger joint, I’d have my share and then refuse the ride home. I’d run those miles, some of them along a narrow thoroughfare in Fort Pierce called, innocently and in spite of the evidence to the contrary, Easy Street. Over the winter, outside baseball season, when the coaches were seeding the rye grass so the Bermuda wouldn’t go dormant and then spending hours on the field with water hoses to keep it alive, I’d run the bleachers. I could be a clumsy kid. I was shy. Life at home was difficult, and sometimes a lot worse. On a baseball field I was more refined. I was sure. I was safe. Try as they might, nobody could hurt me there. That was where I did the hurting. And I really loved the game, particularly as I grew and my body became strong, when I wasn’t the smallest anymore. It felt wonderful to belong to something that loved me back. Baseball wasn’t moody. When we won or lost, when I was good or bad, it was because the game was wholly rational. Out there, you deserved what you got, win or lose.

  The improvement was nearly imperceptible to me, but my fastball was coming. I threw 80 mph, maybe a bit more if the wind was helping, as a sophomore at Port St. Lucie. Early in my junior season, I was pushing 90 and could get 90 when I needed it, and by that June, 92 and 93 felt easy. An assistant coach, a nice man named Tony Malizia, became the pitching coach in 1997, my senior season, and so became the gatekeeper as far as scouts were concerned. He did a good job, because I hardly noticed them, beyond the fact that there’d be a bunch of old guys in Panama hats and loose flowery shirts hanging around games who’d never been around before. We’d get off the bus, and there they’d be, waiting. Watching. Deciding if I was their guy.

  The outgoing message on his answering machine at school reported something along the lines of “You’ve reached Tony Malizia at Port St. Lucie High School. Rick Ankiel next pitches Friday afternoon at home. Otherwise, leave a message.”

  There were stories. The day I warmed up in the bullpen, feeling my fastball, and broke the webbing on the catcher’s mitt. He had another in his duffel bag. In the second inning, he called time and turned to the umpire. That mitt had broken too, and he was fresh out of mitts. The rest of the game, opposing catchers shared the same mitt. They’d leave it on home plate between innings.

  I was good, and I was having fun. It was important to me to be good. Life otherwise could be wobbly at times. There was the afternoon I struck out the first nineteen batters in a seven-inning game. I hit the twentieth batter and then picked him off first base. The twenty-first bunted straight back to me. There was the afternoon I threw a no-hitter and the opposing pitcher threw a one-hitter. That was cool, as the one hit he allowed was my home run.

  My last game, in the regional final, when a win would have sent us to the state playoffs, we lost. I pitched. We were behind by a few runs, and my pitch count was approaching ninety, and the draft was coming, and there was no reason for me to keep pitching. We were in Dunedin. The opposing crowd gave me a standing ovation, which was thrilling. I’d never been that guy before. And in my last at bat, I hit a ball over the center-field fence

  It’s not to say there wasn’t always plenty of noise from the bleachers. My father, after all, was at a lot of my games.

  He viewed himself, I came to believe, as my coach. I believed that because he said so a lot. And then, at practices and games, he’d talk over the men who were supposed to be my coaches. If he weren’t close enough to talk over them, he’d yell. I’d try to ignore it and not be embarrassed by what I couldn’t ignore, because that behavior was not going to change. The big personality, the life-of-the-party outside voice, the smartest-guy-in-the-room assurance, none of that went away because he was behind a chain-link fence. So I pitched. And I hit. And I looked straight ahead. And my coaches put up with it, and I did too.

  When the yelling started at home, I’d push it out of my head. I’d close the door and find something else to think about. The next morning, the four of us—Dad, Mom, Phillip, and I—would fix breakfast and wash up and walk out the door as though the night before had not happened. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but it was better than taking a chance that a conversation would ignite more of the same. We were never going to sit i
n a circle and hold hands and tell each other how we felt. We were, however, going to pretend everything was fine and, when possible, avoid eye contact.

  So, by the time I got to the mound or the batter’s box, I was practiced in the art of self-preservation, of compartmentalization. I’d push it all out of my head and throw a strike, even if Dad were shouting at me to throw the knuckler. Though, granted, sometimes I did. There was a lot going on.

  My senior year, we were playing Jacksonville Bolles at Port St. Lucie. I was pitching well. We were ahead by a few runs. In the bottom of the sixth inning, the pitching coach, Tony Malizia, came to me and said, “You’re done.” I nodded.

  My pitch count wasn’t too high. I felt fine. But the draft was coming, and Tony took care of me first and then the score. I appreciated that. I loved to play and loved to win and felt safe in his hands. He would not overwork my arm, which I was going to need for the next twenty years or so.

  The bottom of the sixth was passing a little too fast, however. The guy who was supposed to relieve me wasn’t ready. “Tell you what, Ricky,” Tony said. “Go get the first out, and then I’ll come get you.” I nodded again. Whatever. I wanted to pitch.

  I don’t recall the particulars of what happened next. My father thought I should not pitch anymore. That I remember. There were eight players on the field to start the seventh inning, and I was not one of them, and there was no pitcher on the mound. That I sort of remember. Everyone was staring into the dugout.

  “Ricky!” Tony said. “You’re pitching!”

  And I responded, “My dad doesn’t want me out there.”

  At which point Tony turned to my dad, who was looking for trouble and went ballistic, shouting something about ruining my arm, and, well, by the time all that was done, the guy who was going to pitch the seventh was warm. Thank goodness for my mom, who’d sit quietly with the other moms and smile and thank my coaches no matter the final score. They adored her, and that was something, even when dear old Dad was reaming out the guy who was simply trying to do his best by me.

  Most of that story I got from Tony years later. It made me wonder what else I’d pushed away, what else I’d conveniently forgotten and didn’t want to know.

  As Tony told it, the next morning he was in the press box at the baseball field preparing for practice. There was a knock on the door. When he opened it, my father and I were standing there. Dad apologized for the outburst and added that he knew Tony had my best interests at heart. They shook hands. And I went back to playing baseball. Down there. Beyond the chain-link fence.

  Maybe by then, I was already gone. Gone from under the drama that was my mother and father. Gone from inside the house that kept it all closed up, airtight, so when the finger-drum of tension approached I could hardly breathe. Gone from the town that reminded me of where I would not—could not—end up. My mother didn’t deserve the life she got, and I would not—could not—choose the same. I was going to chase something better. I was going to let myself dream and go after that.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  The 1997 draft was coming. I hired Scott Boras to advise me, with the intention of hiring him as an agent if that went well. Otherwise, I had a scholarship offer from the University of Miami and even signed a letter of intent, which I considered a good option in spite of the fact that I really didn’t have much use for school. In high school I did just enough homework to get by and gutted my way through tests, sometimes by actually studying for them, other times by having friends who’d already taken the test and were kind enough to pass along the questions and/or answers. School was about survival. That may not sound like the best approach to take to college, but it didn’t seem to bother the colleges. I’d originally been taken with Florida State, which rescinded its scholarship offer when it became clear I would have to choose the Seminoles over millions of dollars. They offered that scholarship to someone else. That meant Miami. On my recruiting trip, one of the administrators asked brightly, “Hey, is there anything you’re worried about?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “My grades.”

  He grinned and winked and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

  I said, “Where do I sign?”

  I loved Miami already.

  I wanted to play professional baseball. And Florida State was right—I wasn’t walking away from instant wealth. Major-league teams probably knew this, so the Miami option didn’t scare them off that much. They were probably more worried that I was working with Scott.

  The year before, Matt White, a high school right-hander from Pennsylvania, Bobby Seay, a left-handed pitcher from Sarasota High School, and Travis Lee, a first baseman at San Diego State, were the Boras studs. The Minnesota Twins took Lee with the second pick, the San Francisco Giants took White with the seventh pick, and the Chicago White Sox took Seay with the twelfth. Well, Scott had discovered a loophole in the collective bargaining agreement, and the three were declared free agents. Lee signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks for $10 million. White got $10.2 million and Seay $3 million from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. None would be even average big-league players. Because of injuries, White never threw a big-league pitch.

  Teams and their scouts didn’t know how any of the three of their careers would turn out in 1997, of course, but Boras’s reputation suggested to them that the 17-year-old lefty in Port St. Lucie wasn’t going to come cheap. I was sort of counting on that, as was my father. Because of our strategy and teams’ general reluctance to spend on amateur talent, Scott told us we’d fall in the draft, even if several publications said I was the nation’s top prospect. It didn’t stop the scouts from coming around and clogging the parking lots and bleachers. I didn’t pay them much mind, even when they followed teammates to the bathroom to ask, “Hey, what’s Rick really like?,” even when they’d drop a pen through the fence at the feet of a teammate and upon its return ask, “Hey, tell me about Rick. Know his dad?”

  Everybody knew my dad.

  Scott prepared us for the day of the draft. Teams were going to avoid me for as long as they could. We had the leverage of Miami. We had the leverage of my arm. It was Scott’s job not to blink. He was very good at not blinking and told my father and me it could be a long day but it would end well, eventually. We’d get our money.

  “We better,” my father told him.

  The New York Mets had the sixth pick. They’d been around a lot. I knew their scouts a little. I knew a lot of scouts a little. The Mets tried to negotiate a predraft deal and offered, I think, just under $2 million. They called me directly, hoping to outmaneuver Scott. I turned them down, on Scott’s advice.

  Fifty-two amateur players went in the first round. Finally, when that round was done, my phone rang. This was 1997, before I could have followed along in real time on a computer. I reached for the phone, thinking, All right, I got drafted.

  “Hello?” I said, sounding respectful and curious about what my first professional team would be.

  “How does it feel,” a voice said, “to slip out of the first round?”

  The line went dead.

  I recognized the voice. It belonged to a Mets scout. I turned to my mother and father and said, “I ever see that guy, I’m gonna slap the shit out of him.”

  Never did see him.

  So we waited in the living room and found other stuff to talk about and watched the clock. I didn’t care where I went in the draft, but I was eager to get on with it. In the middle of the afternoon, the screen door opened, and a local newspaper reporter, a camera hanging from his neck, was standing in front of us. My mother smiled, sure this would all work out, and then amused by the stranger among us.

  “Get the hell outta here,” my father shouted and started toward the reporter, who beat it off the porch and across the yard with his own camera whipping him as he ran.

  Dad might have been stressed by then. We didn’t talk about it much, but it seemed that my being the first pick was important to him, and then the whole first round had come and gone, along wit
h who knows how much money—he didn’t fully trust Scott—and that reporter was fortunate we didn’t live out the rest of the day putting him back together. I knew my talent. I assumed it was worth something. Scott was good at this.

  The second round came, and the clock kept spinning, and my father got redder. He was pacing. I started to get the feeling he thought it wasn’t just my money in jeopardy. It was his too. But we were getting along, and he was spending time at home, and my mom seemed happy, and there always seemed to be something about to set him off, and here we were in the second round. The fiftieth pick passed, then the sixtieth, then the seventieth.

  The phone rang again. It was Scott. The Cardinals, he said. Seventy-second overall.

  “Who are the Cardinals?” I said.

  I wanted to be a Brave. I really only knew the Braves. They had the eightieth pick. I’d waited around that long. What would be another eight picks?

  “Oh, man, that sucks,” I said.

  “No, no, no,” Scott said. “It’s a strong organization. It’s a good thing. They’re a good team. It’s a really, really good thing.”

  It was June 2. I packed to pitch for a USA Baseball eighteen-and-under team that would include future big leaguers Matt Holliday, Michael Cuddyer, and Koyie Hill. Two and a half months later, I was in my room, packing to go to Miami. Maybe I was going to college after all.

  Negotiations between Scott and the Cardinals were arduous, nearly three months running, though both seemed to know there would be agreement. In midsummer, Walt Jocketty, the Cardinals’ general manager, came to Fort Pierce. He drove up to the house with a man I didn’t know. I shook their hands, introduced them to my mom, and then crawled into the backseat of the car. We headed to Jupiter, where they showed me some dirt and grass that one day would be the Cardinals’ spring training and minor league facility. They pointed and described where the buildings would be, then pointed in another direction, and that was where the stadium would be, and then reminded me how close I was to home and my parents.