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: