Southpaw Sensation Everyone wants to know how long Rick Ankiel will be in Memphis. by Dennis Freeland aybe he's not Superman after all. Rick Ankiel, the 19-year-old left-hander who many think is the best prospect in all of minor-league baseball, took his first loss of the season on Memorial Day at Tim McCarver Stadium. A 400-foot home run in the sixth inning and a two-out walk in the seventh spelled doom for Ankiel, who had started 6-0 in the Texas League before winning his first two starts as a Redbird. The lesson for Ankiel, and maybe more so for the large crowds who have come to see him pitch in his two home starts with Memphis, is that no matter how swift the fastball or wicked the change-up, baseball is still a team game. "I think Ankiel sometimes gets in that strikeout mode," pitching coach Marty Mason said before the Memorial Day game with Omaha. "I think early in the count he needs to work on getting more ground balls, and that will get him into the seventh, eighth, and ninth inning." Ankiel did get a ground ball early in the first inning. With nobody out and a runner on first, he served up a seemingly perfect double-play ball, but first baseman Pop Warner made a throwing error and the rookie left-hander gave up an unearned run. "This is just my personal opinion, but I think he will be here until August," Redbirds owner Dean Jernigan says from a box behind home plate as thousands of Memphis fans pour into the stadium. "This is just baseball. These are pure baseball fans," the owner says, looking at the fans. "No promotions or anything." The fans come to see Ankiel. Much more than J.D. Drew, the promising outfielder who spent some time in Memphis last year and is now back on a rehab assignment, Ankiel is drawing huge crowds to Tim McCarver. As a pitcher, he only plays every four or five days, so there is a newness each time he starts, and with the parent team in St. Louis desperate for pitching, there is a fear that every outing could be Ankiel's last in Memphis. "I never want to use the term 'can't miss' because there are too many factors involved," says veteran announcer Tom Stocker, "but he's got as good a chance to be a dominant pitcher at the major-league level as anybody I've seen come through here." Stocker compares Ankiel to Tom Gordon, who pitched for the Memphis Chicks in 1998 and is now with the Red Sox. "He can throw three pitches for strikes and they are all three quality pitches. And he's left-handed," says Memphis manager Gaylen Pitts, explaining why this teenager has so many baseball people talking. "I think just the fact that he is 19 and can handle himself like he does and has the quality stuff that he has is what makes him special. He has a lot of God-given talent." Then Pitts adds the disclaimer that you read over and over when you do research on the kid from Port St. Lucie, Florida: "He's got the maturity of a 25-year-old." He could be in college right now, a freshman at Miami University, where he would be preparing for the college world series. But instead Ankiel, named the 1998 High School Player of the Year by USA Today, signed a major-league contract with the St. Louis Cardinals after graduation. In exchange the Cards paid him a $2.5 million signing bonus. When inner-city kids opt to go straight from high school into the NBA draft, it's a big story. But high-school baseball players are routinely drafted and hardly anything is written. "The difference is, in professional baseball, you very rarely go right from high school to the major leagues," says Stocker. "Usually, unlike Rick Ankiel, a kid who gets signed in the first round starts in A ball. He's sitting in Peoria, Illinois, learning how to be a professional. A kid like Kobe Bryant goes directly to the NBA to learn how to be a professional -- from high school to Tinseltown. He has to learn how to be a pro through a baptism of fire, being a pro at the highest level." But Ankiel is different. Barring injury, he will pitch in the major leagues this season. The only question is when. If the Cardinals are patient and allow him to spend the remainder of the season in Triple A, they can promote him when the major-league rosters expand in September. But if Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa becomes desperate, he could send for Ankiel any day. "It's just a matter of what their thinking is up there," Pitts says. "If they want to bring him up, I'm sure he can handle it." Stocker brings up a name from the 1998 season, Cliff Politte, when asked what he thinks the Cardinals are thinking. Politte started last year in the Cardinals' rotation, then was sent down to Memphis before his free-fall continued to Double-A Little Rock. The process damaged the young pitcher's confidence. "That's whats going through their minds in St. Louis. Not to say that Politte was as good as Rick Ankiel, but they obviously did not do Politte a favor by rushing him to the big leagues. I think they are going to be very, very cautious with Ankiel. There's just too much value there." After watching Ankiel pitch twice in Memphis, it is obvious he's a special talent. But it is just as clear that he is still a teenager. Certainly he could pitch in the big leagues -- this week. After expansion, there are plenty of pitchers starting in the American and National leagues who will never be in the same class as Ankiel. But what's best for the player? The only thing number 21 lacks is experience. He's struggling with the same questions all adolescents face, starting with "Who am I?" "With a kid his age it's just a matter of pitching and getting his feet on the ground," Mason says. "He's got a lot to learn about himself and about the game, but he's a young talent. He's got it going on." If the Cards leave Ankiel at Memphis this season, he can learn how to pitch when he doesn't have his best stuff, how to get out of jams after his defense has let him down, and what to do with batters who crowd the plate waiting on his 90 mph fastball. And perhaps just as important, he will learn how to deal with adoring (and often intrusive) fans and teammates who may resent his meteoric rise to fame and fortune. When Ankiel is taken out of the game, Memphis fans head for the parking lot, a fact that is not lost on the other Redbirds. Though some of the Memphis players have complained about the early exits, Mason says Ankiel's teammates have handled the lefty's arrival without any problems. "All these guys are hot shots," he says with a grin. "All these guys think they can play. We had J.D. Drew last year. Every year you're going to have guys like that. It's part of the business of baseball. These guys have been around long enough that something like this doesn't bother them." Besides worrying about his mental and emotional well-being, the Cardinal organization has to be concerned about Ankiel's arm. More and more of today's young hurlers are developing shoulder and elbow problems. St. Louis doesn't want Ankiel to become another Kerry Wood, the Cubs hurler who had one splendid season, but threw his arm out in the process. "If you notice, it is the younger pitchers," says Stocker. "You never hear of Greg Maddux coming up with arm problems. You never hear of Kevin Brown coming up with arm problems. Because they know how to pitch, they know how to pace themselves, how to handle themselves. When you've got a kid 19 years old, he has to learn how to be a professional pitcher." Pitts thinks the increase in arm injuries may be more than a physical problem. "I think a lot of times in the old days people pitched through it a little bit more," he says. "You didn't have the surgeries perfected like they do now. Nobody went to get MRIs. If you had tendonitis in your shoulder, you pitched through it." The Redbirds skipper says he doesn't feel any special pressure overseeing such an expensive arm. "I handle everybody the same," he says. "I'm going to keep a close eye on him, that's for sure, but I don't feel any extra pressure. I enjoy watching him pitch." The same can be said of Memphis baseball fans. They just wonder how long it will be until they have to drive to St. Louis to see Superman on the mound.