So I’m working on my laptop early morning style, sitting on the balcony (it’s the only place to get WiFi for some reason) and I left the television running on CNN because it’s the only English station (with Hungarian commercials) and I hear the ‘Play of the Day’ in “World Sport”. It’s Rick Ankiel of the St. Louis Cardinals! He went deep twice and made an amazing catch in the 8th (after his two homers, proving offensive and defensive maneuvers!).
Hopefully Ankiels’ return will give a morale boost to the Redbirds and we’ll see the NL Central heat up a bit. First we need to get to .500, but with plenty of games left and only 6.5 games behind the Brewers, and 5 behind the Cubs, August and September could prove very interesting.
In other Redbirds related news, two evenings ago I saw the SKAtalites play at the World Music stage at the Sziget festival, and there in the crowd on an island of 40,000+ people, I found the lone other Cardinals fan:
[full-size on Flickr]
Man I was so fucking stoked about Ankiel. I’ve been following him since 2000 when he contracted “Steve Blass Disease,” and it’s amazing to see how much natural talent he has that he can switch from a lefty side-arm pitcher to an outright slugger, which fielding skills to boot.
In case you missed his run today, here it is: Two homers, a single and a twisted, diving catch to save a base-hit.
Hmm, guess you can’t embed YouTube videos on your comments. Here’s the video from Sunday.
i’m sure you could with some plugin, but thanks for the link.
I love the smiles on all the dugout players in the bottom of the 7th after his solo homer. hilarious.