Replacement Players

Episode 3 is a wild one. Literally! Jokes! I’m pleased to welcome Jason Fry, who makes up one half of Faith and Fear in Flushing, “the Mets blog for fans who like to read.” Along with Greg Prince, Jason makes one of the best and best-written baseball sites in existence. Regardless of your fandom, if you’ve never read FAFIF, seriously, what are you doing with your life? In today’s episode, Jason and I gab about game 2 of the 2000 NLCS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets. This game contains what might be the ugliest meltdown that has ever occurred on a major league field. Before the 2000 playoffs, Rick Ankiel was a serious rookie of the year candidate, spoken of in the same breath as Sandy Koufax in terms of his talent and potential. In this game, you see his career as a pitcher disintegrate before your eyes. I can’t think of a quicker, uglier fall from grace in any sport. In our talk, Jason and I talk about Ankiel’s fall from grace, the origins of Jas