Feel Good Stories

There are a couple. First, did you hear about this story? For whatever reason, I remember when this guy dropped out of the major leagues. Usually when a guy doesn't make it, he just fades away into nothing. I think the difference with Rick Ankiel is that his attempted march into obscurity was so spectacular. He had a world of talent as a pitcher, but he self-destructed and was the same person who threw five wild pitches in one inning in the playoffs a few years ago. That's quite a feat considering that hadn't been done since 1890. But he really was considered a big time prospect. There was a reason why he was chosen to be the first pitcher in the Cardinals series versus the Mets in 2000. However, in spite of the talent he had displayed he just could not cut it at the major league level as a pitcher.

In 2005, he switched to the outfield and decided to start over. He was invited to spring training with the Cards in 2006 and showed some promise, but a season-ending injury to his knee slowed the comeback. Slowed, but did not stop. This season he worked his way onto the triple A affiliate (you ever notice that is not ever spelled out like AAA? it's always written). He slugged 32 home runs and then this past Thursday night, August 9th, in his fourth at bat, Rick Ankiel dramatically announced his return with a home run off of Padres reliever Doug Brocail that sailed into the rightfield seats.



And what a place to do it too. Nobody appreciates baseball more than the fans do in St. Louis.

The second comes from my work. I found a stack of papers that I was supposed to file away, but they were different than the normal stuff that comes across my desk. I asked my boss what they were and if I needed to file them and she told me yes, but that they were invoices and receipts for medical expenses for one of our employees. One of the porters has a little girl that is 8 years old and she has cancer. Although his family is all covered, for whatever reason the insurance would not cover $25,000 worth of the treatment. With his $10-12 an hour salary, there was no way he could make the payment for that. So the company stepped in and picked up the bill. No questions asked, no expected return payment. They just paid it. Nobody will find out about it because I'm sure that's not something they want to advertise, but I thought that was the coolest thing ever. So thank you General William Lyon. You saved this little girl's life and only this guy's family, me, Claudia, Marla, and my blog readers will ever know about this wonderful act of kindness.

One final note...I can't believe I'm not at all compelled to write about Barry Bonds breaking the home run record any more than just writing about how I don't care to write about it. I'm a huge sports fan, but this just doesn't matter to me. That's how much the record has been cheapened. I just flat out don't care. It's not like I hate Barry or anything like that...but I didn't ever bother to try and catch a game with him, watch any of his at-bats, and I haven't even seen the video for when he hit it. It's just crazy to me. It's just meaningless. That's sad.

One more class act...Tom Glavine. He reached 300 wins as a pitcher about a week or ago. I was a big-time Braves fan during the 90s when they were awesome for 14 years straight. I actually still follow them a good amount. I was actually really excited that they got Texeira at the deadline, way to go Schuerholz. But Tom Glavine is a class act, through and through. I liked him more than Greg Maddux when they both pitched for the Bravos. Congratulations to him. I still have his Fleer '87 rookie card, going to be worth millions some day, you'll see.