Baseball’s Greatest Resurrection Stories

Word on the street is a couple of thousand years ago, an egg-laying, human-sized rabbit by the name of Jesus died, then get this — he Houdini-ed the whole world by coming back to life three days later. Every spring, there’s a Sunday where tons of people eat ham and drink spiked orange juice to celebrate said prank. Perhaps I’ve muddled some of the holiday’s finer details, but this is a time of year when the good kind of zombies is on people’s minds. And, well, I’d be remiss not to stoke those fires.

So you read the title; you know the drill. Prepare yourself to die and then un-die with the sport’s most special resurrection stories.

Everybody That Fought In WWII

Living in a millennium in which people suffer injuries playing guitar hero (RHP Joel Zumaya, 2006), sneezing too hard (RHP Mat Latos, 2010) and fixing drones (RHP Trevor Bauer, 2016), it’s wild to think some of the legends of the past missed multiple seasons to fight Adolf Hitler in World War II. Famous nonsense-spewer C Yogi Berra was at Omaha Beach spewing not nonsense, but bullets during the D-Day invasion. LHP Warren Spahn earned a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge before he went on to make 17 All-Star teams. Now, hear me out: I’m not trying to peddle that the past generations were leagues tougher than us sort of thinking. But go ahead and try to find a recent tale similar to that of LHP Lou Brissie. His leg was blown to bits in 1944, and three years and 23 surgeries later, he was pitching in the league. Two years after that, he’d become an All-Star. It makes you want to get in front of a pitching machine “Happy Gilmore” style and wear a couple of heaters off the chest to toughen up.

The 2016 Chicago Cubs

Four games into the 2016 World Series, things were looking bleak for the baby bears, down 3-1 against the Cleveland I-Words. It seemed the infamous Curse of the Billy Goat would prolong, and the championship drought would continue. But the Cubs rallied. They took Game 5. Then they took Game 6. Then they were winning Game 7 until manager Joe Maddon made several questionable pitching changes that are only forgivable because everybody knows the outcome. An over-extended LHP Aroldis Chapman gave up a game-tying dinger to OF Rajai Davis in the 8th — we can only surmise how many TVs were thrown out windows following this event. Many, I’m sure. Then there was a rain delay. Cubs RF Jason Heyward gave a defibrillating speech comparable to Bugs Bunny’s halftime rallying cry in “Space Jam.” The Cubs metaphorically drank Mike’s Secret Stuff and ended up winning the game. Every Cubs fan, living or otherwise, cried tears of joy. In fact, they collectively cried enough to supply Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium with salt water until the end of time.

Rick Ankiel

In 2000, his first major league season, St. Louis Cardinals LHP Rick Ankiel was looking studly, like he’d maybe develop into one of the league’s premier left-handed power arms. Then the postseason rolled around and his brain went, “Error 404 Strike Zone Not Available.” Perhaps the worst case of the yips ever. Anikel spent a lot of time in the minors trying to figure out how to throw a baseball in the same area code as home plate but couldn’t. So, he did what every pitcher ever likes to think they can do in a situation like that, but let’s be honest. He left the mound for the outfield, transitioning into a full-time hitter. Seven years after that initial blow-up, Ankiel returned to St. Louis, hit an emotional dinger in his debut appearance and became a serviceable big leaguer for the next couple of years. He was most notable for gunning down baserunners with his howitzer of an arm. It’s crazy watching highlights of some of his more impressive outfield assists — the ones where he’s throwing long, arcing 300-foot strikes. Right afterward, he must have thought, “where the hell was this 10 years ago?”

Josh Hamilton

OF Josh Hamilton probably did a league-average amount of booze-soaked, cocaine-fueled partying — if he’d arrived on the baseball scene during the height of the rock ‘n’ roll 80s. But those times were long gone. It was the early 2000s, and the newly-created Tampa Bay Rays organization wasn’t exactly psyched that their superstar-in-the-making was hoovering blow by the truckload. They were like, “Josh, it’s not 1986, and we’re not the New York Mets, so could you maybe please stop doing all this coke?” Hamilton, clearly still stuck in that 80s mentality, retorted with a “Top Gun” line: “That’s a negative, Ghost Rider.” He sank into the depths of addiction, and those pesky drug tests kept him off the field for four years. But by the time the Rays parted ways with him in ’06, he showed signs of leaving this lifestyle behind. He’d finally climb out of the belly of the beast and break into the bigs with the Cincinnati Reds the following year before getting traded to the Texas Rangers, where he’d remind everybody about how he’s talented to the nth degree. All-Star selections and an AL MVP award followed suit. But after his Texas tenure, he’d sign with the Los Angeles Angels, and a second fall from grace ensued (I didn’t say all these stories were going to have happy endings now, did I?). Injuries and relapses defined the latter half of his career, and he recently decided to kick off his post-baseball life with a dose of child abuse. He’s currently facing time behind bars for beating his daughter.

So, with the heart-warming thought of violence against children fresh on your mind, I bid thee a happy (belated) Easter.

Cover photo courtesy of Paul Beaty/AP Photo