{"id":510,"date":"2009-05-05T22:17:35","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T03:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2009-05-05T22:17:35","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T03:17:35","slug":"ankiel-stl-of-released-from-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=510","title":{"rendered":"Ankiel (STL OF) released from hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just before Rick Ankiel barreled headfirst into the wall, the thought flashed through his mind: My career is finished.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cI thought that might be it,\u201d the St. Louis Cardinals\u2019 outfielder said Tuesday. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t get a chance to put up your hands to protect yourself, I\u2019m lucky to be walking today. Anything from here is a plus.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Ankiel escaped with only soreness from the harrowing collision after making a running catch at the warning track in the eighth inning Monday. X-rays and a CT scan of Ankiel\u2019s head, neck and back revealed no broken bones, although manager Tony La Russa was so concerned he spent the night in the hospital with the center fielder.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Feeling very fortunate he was able to stand at his locker stall and talk to reporters, Ankiel said he \u201ctweaked\u201d his right shoulder and added that his neck and left side, which appeared to take the brunt of the blow, also were the worse for wear. He was released from the hospital earlier Tuesday and was due to be examined by team physician Dr. George Paletta later in the day.<\/em> \u201cI\u2019m just total body sore,\u201d Ankiel said. \u201cI was relieved, but I\u2019ve never gone through that and I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re supposed to feel and what you\u2019re not supposed to feel.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cI hit it just so hard that all I could imagine was that something\u2019s going to be wrong.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>The team postponed a decision whether to place him on the 15-day disabled list, depending on how much better he\u2019s feeling in a few days.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>La Russa said Ankiel was \u201cbeat-up,\u201d but added, \u201cIt\u2019s worth waiting a couple of days because there wasn\u2019t anything broken. Just in case he can go.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Ankiel has been with the Cardinals since they drafted him in the second round in 1997 as a phenom left-handed pitcher out of Ft. Pierce High School, and he made the conversion to full-time outfielder in 2007. His badly-dented hat, which reflected the intensity of the collision, was on a shelf in the manager\u2019s office.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a good night\u2019s sleep,\u201d La Russa said. \u201cA lot of things in that game were upsetting.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>The team was relieved when Ankiel flashed a thumbs-up sign as he was carted off the field.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cHopefully, it doesn\u2019t happen again,\u201d teammate Brendan Ryan said. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those freak things, and I hope we get him back real soon.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Ryan said Ankiel felt well enough to exchange text messages Monday night. Ryan told Ankiel \u201check of a play but you scared us,\u201d and Ankiel responded \u201ccan\u2019t wait till we\u2019re both healthy and see who can make better plays.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Ankiel was running full speed to chase down Pedro Feliz\u2019s long drive and couldn\u2019t stop himself from crashing. He took a few off-balance steps after making the grab and took the ball out of his glove before attempting to brace himself with his left arm, deciding he didn\u2019t have enough time to execute a slide before stumbling.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Ankiel said he\u2019s watched replays of the collision perhaps 35 times and added \u201cIt\u2019s just like I imagined.\u201d He remembered his eyes being open and his head getting twisted upon impact. When he landed on the warning track, flat on his back, he believed he might have broken his neck or back.<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cMy lower back was really tight and tense, and in between my shoulder blades I felt like somebody was kind of stabbing me,\u201d Ankiel said. \u201cAfter that I knew not to move.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>The 3-inch padded wall in left center no doubt spared Ankiel from serious injury. Right fielder Ryan Ludwick said the wall was hard, \u201cbut it\u2019s not like concrete.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>\u201cHe just lunged into it,\u201d La Russa said. \u201cThe padding\u2019s definitely better than if there had been no padding, but it was still a shock.\u201d<\/em> <\/em> <\/em>Holding off on a move left the manager with only three position players on the bench for the finale of a two-game set against the Phillies, because the Cardinals are using a 13-man pitching staff during a run of 20 straight games without a day off.<\/em> I tell ya what, this guy is a trooper, I thought for sure he would be \u00a0out for at least 2-3 months but 15 day DL? \u00a0Wow unreal this guy got ATTACKED by the wall in CF and will be back in 15 days. \u00a0If that were me we would be attending my funeral. \u00a0For real though, I’m glad to see that he is fine and that there is no serious damage that was done. \u00a0Good to see he will be back sooner then expected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just before Rick Ankiel barreled headfirst into the wall, the thought flashed through his mind: My career is finished. \u201cI thought that might be it,\u201d the St…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,21],"tags":[589,591,588,592,590],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","category-philadelphia_phillies","tag-cardinals-injury","tag-center-rick-ankiel","tag-rick-ankiel-injury","tag-rick-ankiel-released","tag-st-louis-cards-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}