The Phenomenon - Rick Ankiel and Tim Brown

The Phenomenon is Rick Ankiel talking about his life, especially the 2000 playoff game where he, all of the sudden, couldn't throw the ball where he wanted it to go any more. Not because of any physical ailment, a torn elbow ligament or rotator cuff. Because somewhere in the sequence of his brain telling his body what to do, and the body doing it, something went awry.

The book starts there, goes back to his childhood, his abusive criminal of a dad and Ankiel's steps to the majors. Then it moves forward, detailing all the things he went through trying to overcome "the monster" as he calls it frequently. Eventually, he abandons pitching and comes back as an outfielder, and played for several years in the major leagues in that capacity.

The writing is straightforward, with a good, easy flow to it. A lot of short, punchy sentences, with occasional longer passages. It has the air of someone who has spent a lot of time going over this again and again, either with others or himself. So at times, there's a sense of peace, but at others, there's still that frustration with things. Like his father, or why him, and why then. There are excerpts of conversations he had with sports psychologists about it, years after, and chapters devoted to a couple of other ballplayers who suffered through it as well, including one of Ankiel's Cardinals' teammates, Gary Bennett, a catcher who early in 2007 started to struggle tossing the ball back to the pitcher. There's no certain answer, at some point, something that had felt natural for so long was now almost impossible. Just throw the freaking ball, right? How hard can that be? Pretty damn hard at times.

It feels strange to describe the book as "enjoyable", because it can be wrenching to read. Ankiel decides, during Spring Training of 2005, that he's done. As he explains how inside, he was insisting it wasn't quitting, but retiring, the reader understands because we see everything he's tried, and the toll it's taken. Even at the point, he explains he thinks he could have pitched effectively (and had done so in a few relief appearances the previous September). But he talks about how, essentially, he had to spend the other 21 hours of each day trying to mentally prepare himself for the three hours where he might be called on to pitch. You can see how that would take a toll. Which makes the last quarter of the book, he time as an outfielder and beyond, more upbeat, because Rick was clearly enjoying himself more, freed from the constraints of pitching.

It was an interesting book to read, since I'm a St. Louis Cardinals' fan, I read it through the filter of my own memories of that time. I remember all through the 2000 season, trying to temper my excitement of how well Ankiel was pitching, because every other promising young starter the Cardinals had the last few years had gotten hurt, and Rick looked as though he could be better than any of them. That disastrous playoff game, all the second-guessing (was it a bad idea to start him in Game 1?) and the what-ifs (what if Mike Matheny hadn't been injured due to a freak accident with a birthday gift?) Ankiel, for his part, doesn't seem to think any of that was the issue. He was fine in the second inning, and then in the third, it unraveled. He talks with Matheny at one point, and when Matheny expresses regret he couldn't be out there, Ankiel replies Matheny couldn't have caught for him forever. At some point, Ankiel would have to be able to throw strikes without him.

The one that was most surprising was Ankiel describing how, at the start of 2001, he tried pitching drunk for his first two starts. He could feel himself panicking, and he wanted to quiet it. I remember watching that first start, against Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Being nervous every time he walked a guy, excited with each out he recorded. Never entered my mind he had a water bottle full of vodka waiting in the dugout. It ultimately didn't work. Even by the second start, he could tell the monster was adapting, as he puts it. But he tried everything. Breathing exercises, pills, throwing the ball at the wall behind his house for hours, psychologists, and just trying to push through it by sheer will.

'But, damn, my heart was running. My head was clogged. I closed my eyes and put myself on that mound in St. Louis, testing myself, and the crowd rose, and the moment arrived, and I was terrified. In my backyard, facing a wall, alone, the anxiety was bigger than I was.'