"Short of winning the World Series, I think that's the happiest that I've seen our club, " said Cardinals' manager Tony La Russa. "It's so emotional. He is such a special young man. For him to do that, in a close game, we needed every bit of those runs. What a moment. He's a big leaguer from now on to forever. He has the talent to pull it off."

Seven years ago, Ankiel suffered one of the most dramatic meltdowns in the history of American sport. In a crucial play-off game against the Atlanta Braves live on national television, the then 21-yearold pitcher basically forgot how to throw the ball. The left arm that earned him a signing bonus of $2.5m when drafted by the Cardinals straight out of high school suddenly began to betray him in front of a live national television audience. Like a scene from the movie Bull Durham the guy who'd spent all his life learning to hurl the ball 95 miles an hour with incredible precision could no longer find the catcher's mitt behind home plate.

"I just lost it right there on the mound, I don't know what I was thinking, " said Ankiel of that fateful day. "I'd go blank before I'd throw the ball, and then after I'd say to myself, 'How the hell did that happen?' It was definitely weird. I mean, I'd been doing it so many times in my life, and suddenly I can't throw a ball?"

His pitches didn't just miss the target either. They were so wild and high most fans found the whole thing very amusing.

After all, this was more like something from a beer league in a local park on a summer's evening. The problem was that though nobody knew it then, Ankiel's career had begun to unravel and he would never be the same pitcher again. Twice more during the play-offs, the Cardinals gave him the ball and hoped the Braves' outing was a freak accident. It wasn't. The waywardness struck him each time he took the mound.

Like a golfer with a severe case of the yips, he could no longer do what he'd spent most of his life doing without even thinking.

Despite giving off an air of imperiousness with the ball in his hand, Ankiel had a troubled backstory.

Growing up in Florida, he was a teen prodigy pushed and prodded along by an overbearing father who nearly turned him off the game for life.

By the time he finally made it to the show, Rick Ankiel senior, already owner of a long and less than illustrious rap sheet, was in prison for drug-smuggling and his parents had divorced. With his father still behind bars, the Cardinals' best pitcher spent five years (one of which he missed through injury) battling the affliction.

There were bouts of fleeting success but none that endured.

The problem would always come back at crucial moments.

Finally, in the spring of 2005, he announced his decision to give up pitching . . . the most specialised position in baseball . . .

and to try again as an outfield player. Most people's first response was to laugh at the notion and/or pity him for losing his talent.

"It's just different up here, " said New York Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter.

"In some ways, the skills are so different, that you have as much of a chance of being really good in two different sports, like hockey and basketball, as you would of being really good at pitching and hitting at the major-league level."

Imagine the reaction if after a series of brutal displays Shay Given informed Newcastle United he fancied hanging up the gloves and recasting himself as a central midfielder and you get the picture. It was all very improbable. That the last serious pitcher to become a a big hitter during his major league career was Babe Ruth kind of says it all. Apart from the physical difficulty of learning a new position, there was also the matter of the psychological damage suffered during his fall from grace.

Just two years (one of which was lost to a knee injury) and five months on from his shocking decision, Ankiel got called up by the Cardinals following stellar form in the minors. He didn't hit one out of the park in his very first at-bat but his fourth time up, he dispatched his first homer as an out-fielder. Cardinals' fans had won the 2006 World Series while he was away but their ovation for this achievement was still special. They'd witnessed his disintegration all those years ago, tracked the vagaries of his life since and finally got to see something very, very unique.

"I don't think I had any physical feeling, " said Ankiel afterwards. "I felt like I was floating."

What else could he possibly say?