In the wake of Rick Ankiel's big game Thursday (headline in the St. Louis paper: "A star is reborn"), I was going to favor you with Brian Gunn's latest take on Ankiel.I also was going to present my not-so-prescient evaluation of Ankiel's chances as a hitter, from the spring of 2005, which went something like this ...

There's a precedent here.In 1957, Cardinals rookie Von McDaniel pitched a two-hit shutout in his major league debut. He wound up the season with a 7-5 record and a 3.22 ERA. Oh, one more thing: He was 18 years old. McDaniel never won another game in the majors. He missed most of 1958 with an injury, and spent 1959 in the Florida State League. He pitched well that season, going 13-5 ... and he also played in the field, and batted .313 with 10 homers and 71 RBIs. That basically ended McDaniel's career as a pitcher, but he spent six more seasons in the minors as a power-hitting infielder. That's about what I think will happen to Rick Ankiel. He's immensely talented, but almost certainly not talented enough to hit major league pitching with any sort of consistency. He's the new Von McDaniel.

All that seems a bit irrelevant upon the news last night that Ankiel received shipments of human growth hormone throughout 2004.

Florida physician William Gogan signed Ankiel's prescriptions, providing them through a Palm Beach Gardens clinic called The Health and Rejuvenation Center, or THARC, the newspaper reported. The drugs were shipped to Ankiel at the clinic's address, the paper said. The 28-year-old Ankiel lives close by in Jupiter.When contacted by The Associated Press, Ankiel's agent, Scott Boras, said he couldn't comment because of medical privacy laws. "This is the first I've heard of this,'' Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty told the Daily News. "If it's true, obviously it would be very tragic, along with everything else we've had happen to us this year.'' Major League Baseball doesn't test for HGH, and the sport didn't ban human growth hormone until 2005. But a player who possessed it or used it after it was banned can be suspended for 50 games.Authorities have not accused Ankiel of any wrongdoing, the newspaper said. According to the Signature records the News cited, he stopped receiving HGH just before baseball banned it in 2005.

Hmm, let's see here ... he stopped receiving the banned substance before it was banned? And if true, "obviously it would be very tragic"? Gosh, I don't know. Unfortunate, sure. Inconvenient, absolutely. But it's very tragic when a professional athlete gains the same edge that so many of his colleagues have gained? And probably won't be punished? No, today the Rick Ankiel Story isn't nearly as spiffy as it was just yesterday. But I have to tell you, I've got a really hard time getting worked up over this news.