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  1. #1

    Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    First off, before I get into my story, I wanted to give a shout-out to STLHAMMER32 for making this item available to me and being such a pleasure to work with!

    To give a brief history, I grew up in suburban St. Louis my whole life and was about 9 years old when the Ankiel-Craze struck the area. This was the first time I had ever experienced such hype for a player that hadn't even pitched in the major leagues. I was immediately intrigued and tried to find out as much information about his as I could.

    Once he broke into the big leagues, I remember thinking Ankiel was the definition of "cool" in terms of baseball players. I was enamored with the knee-high stirrups and big-loopy curveball. As an impressionable kid, I tried to look and play exactly like him; including wearing #66 in little league and rocking the knee-high socks.

    As a result, I collected Ankiel baseball cards pretty aggressively throughout my adolescence and even after I "left" the baseball card hobby, I always followed his career as he bounced around through the minors and DL stints.

    Fast forward to my college years of '08-'12, I was fortunate to have the opportunity of meeting Rick in person during Spring Training a couple of times before he left the organization. He was always a pleasure to meet and always seem to have a child-like zeal towards the game of baseball. I've always been told its better to never meet your heroes in person, but getting to meet Rick on different occasions just further solidified my fanhood.

    Nowadays, I've entered into the game used arena and have acquired some different Cardinals pieces, as well as a humble collection of Ankiel Cardinals memorabilia; primarily just bats. On occasion, I will post feeler threads on this site to see if there are any pieces of Ankiel memorabilia floating around that people are willing to part ways with. STLHAMMER32 contacted me regarding some items he has, one of them being Rick's fielding glove from 1999.

    Of course I was intrigued by this, and we exchanged some dialogue, pictures, etc. Once I saw pictures of the glove, I immediately recognized it from a lot of the pictures and rookie cards I had of Ankiel growing up. We worked out a deal for the glove and I just received it in the mail yesterday.

    Now starts part of my somewhat frustrating, yet fun dilemma I've found myself in. I have "style-matched" this glove to many pictures, cards, videos, etc. It seems that Ankiel wore this glove almost exclusively in 1999, but switched to a different one in 2000. Even though I'm 99% sure this is truly Ankiel's 1999 glove, I haven't been able to come up with anything more than just a "style-match." I can't really identify anything on the glove that I can positively identify that the glove in my possession is indeed the actual glove I see him pictured with in 1999.

    I was hoping some of you experts on the board may be able to potentially give some guidance on where to go from here. I do however have an ace up my sleeve that may help me positively identify this glove.

    In June, Ankiel is scheduled to be in St. Louis for an autograph signing at one of the malls a couple miles from my house. I have some items I'd like to have signed, but I also am going to bring this glove and show it to Rick in person. I realize he may not have seen this glove potentially in 15 years, however, being a former baseball player myself, I realize that gloves are a fairly personal item and you usually stick with the same one for at least a year. I feel like there is a good chance that he will be able to recognize it, assuming it truly was his glove.

    I'm hoping he'll be able to hold it, wear it, etc. and maybe give some insight into positively identifying whether or not this is actually his glove. Again, I don't really have any big doubts with the glove, but since Rick didn't take this off after a game in 1999 and personally hand it to me, there will always be a shred of doubt in my mind. I feel like this may be my best option to add some significance and provenance to the glove. Heck, he may even have a story or experience with the glove that he may be willing to share. Hopefully, Rick will have the same pleasant attitude that he always has in prior dealings and is engaging when I present this to him.

    So, do any of you have any advice or guidance on what your next steps would be if you were me? I'm curious to hear others' opinions and welcome any feedback! Pictures of the glove and several "style-matches" are in the post below:

  2. #2

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)


  3. #3

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)


  4. #4

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)


  5. #5

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    There are plenty more cards/pics out there, but just wanted to highlight a couple


  6. #6
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    776

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    Happy that it went to a good home, a true fan and a passionate collector. I sold it to chase down a grail of mine, a Josh Hamilton gamer. Both players have incredible stories with endings yet to be finished.

  7. #7

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    What's immediately noticeable is the dirt, clay, wear, or whatever those red marks are above the Rawlings logo. That would be the main thing I'd look for in other media. Getty Images or AP Photos may have some better photos for a photo match.

    Additionally, it looks like the custom embroidery isn't perfectly parallel to the seam on the thumb of the glove. If you look closer to the "ick" in his first name, there's a noticeable gap between the baseline of the type and the seam, but the "iel" of his last name is comparably closer to the seam. The ESPN2 screenshot seems to show this (see below). In your screenshot, his first name is clearly separated from the seam. Thanks to the video quality, the end of his last name looks like it's starting to bleed into the seam.

    For the most part, embroidery like that tends to be unique on a piece-by-piece basis due to the fact that it's hard to apply it in the exact same spot on different items over and over. It could be a little to the top, bottom, left, right, or even rotated a couple of degrees differently.

    Someone with more baseball expertise may want to chime in. Congratulations on picking up the glove!

    I'm always looking for game-used Tulane Green Wave football jerseys. Feel free to get in touch! #RollWave
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  8. #8

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    Awesome, great observation! You're right, the embroidery isn't completely parallel with the seam. It's not super evident, but definitely noticeable if you are really looking at it. The problem is finding Hi-Res pictures from that time period. The angles are always tough and most of the cards aren't really close enough to make a definitive match. This definitely helps a lot though!

    I wish I could find some game or video archives from the 1999 season to see if I can't match them up; however, I can't hardly find anything prior to 2004 for the Cardinals. It's unbelievable to me in our day of internet-everything that there aren't archived pictures, game footage, videos, etc sitting out there somewhere. Maybe there is and I'm just not great at digging around, but all my searches have come up empty.

    I think my saving grace will be able to show it to Rick in person. He still may not be able to 100% attest to the fact that this is the exact glove he broke into the majors with, but I'm fairly certain he will at least be able to tell me whether or not it is one of his legit gamers. I'm sure he's gone through many more gloves in his lifetime than me, but I feel like I could positively identify a glove that I used at any point in my life vs. a glove that wasn't mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by aus10dixon View Post
    What's immediately noticeable is the dirt, clay, wear, or whatever those red marks are above the Rawlings logo. That would be the main thing I'd look for in other media. Getty Images or AP Photos may have some better photos for a photo match.

    Additionally, it looks like the custom embroidery isn't perfectly parallel to the seam on the thumb of the glove. If you look closer to the "ick" in his first name, there's a noticeable gap between the baseline of the type and the seam, but the "iel" of his last name is comparably closer to the seam. The ESPN2 screenshot seems to show this (see below). In your screenshot, his first name is clearly separated from the seam. Thanks to the video quality, the end of his last name looks like it's starting to bleed into the seam.

    For the most part, embroidery like that tends to be unique on a piece-by-piece basis due to the fact that it's hard to apply it in the exact same spot on different items over and over. It could be a little to the top, bottom, left, right, or even rotated a couple of degrees differently.

    Someone with more baseball expertise may want to chime in. Congratulations on picking up the glove!


  9. #9
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Posts
    147

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    Thats cool man, you need to let us know what he says!

  10. #10

    Re: Ongoing Story of my Rick Ankiel Holy Grail (Long-Read)

    Thanks! I definitely will keep this thread updated with any new findings and also after I'm able to show it to him in person. The signing is June 6th, so its only a little over a month away.

    I'm thinking about contacting the store owner who is putting on the signing and explaining the situation to him. I think he's only signing for about an hour, so I don't want to hold up the line or anything. I'm hoping I may be able to go last, so everyone has already gone through... that way I could potentially have an extra minute to talk to Rick about the glove and maybe get a picture taken with the it.

    Quote Originally Posted by UTeric3232 View Post
    Thats cool man, you need to let us know what he says!

 

 

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