Ankiel is older, wiser and wary
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
August 15, 2007
This is supposed to be a new beginning. But it feels so familiar, and that
terrifies Rick Ankiel. He knows what it means to be baseball's great new
sensation, its odds-defying wonder, and he also knows where it landed him the
first time.
Ankiel wants to believe that place no longer exists, that the wild pitches
and walks and self-doubt – the remnants of his old career as a pitcher –
are decaying in some faraway place. Someday they might. For now, they remain
close, reminders of what was, harbingers of what can be.
在大聯盟闖出名號似乎對目前棒球界中轟動的人物Rick Ankiel來說是個全新的開始
，但其實對他來說，這件事是很熟悉的，也曾經讓他害怕。而且他仍然記得這份恐懼感是
如何在他剛上大聯盟時打擊了他。
Ankiel相信那個令他恐懼的地方再也不存在了，當他原本的職業生涯身為一個投手時
，留下了無數的暴投、保送跟自我懷疑。而這些東西已經在遙遠的地方腐朽了。或許有一
天，它們會讓我們想起過去的歷史，也同時又是某些事情的預告。
Without all his failures, Ankiel would be nothing. With them, Ankiel has been
everything – a wunderkind left-hander who came from a broken family with a
recidivist dad, sparkled in the big leagues at 20, started Game 1 of the 2000
playoffs for the St. Louis Cardinals at 21, crashed and burned with fits of
bad command immediately thereafter, smoldered for years, quit, returned as an
outfielder, trucked it in the low minor leagues, shook off a season-stealing
injury, morphed into a power-hitting monster and then, in his major-league
debut as an outfielder Thursday, crushed a home run, and followed two days
later with two more homers.
And still, the most he could muster Tuesday, after trying to absorb the
enormity of his week, was a smirk. Success once was his analgesic, and Ankiel
won't let it numb him again.
"This feels similar, and maybe that's helping me deal with it better," he
said. "I'm more mature. I'm older. I look at things differently. I see things
through older eyes."
如果沒有過去的那些失敗，Ankiel將不再是Ankiel。就是有了過去的陰影，才造就
了今天我們所看到的Ankiel