Rick Ankiel Slams into the Wall Head First and Lays Motionless on the Ground
05 May 2009
Two weeks following the removal of his mustache, Rick Ankiel now finds his face injured in a head on collision with the centerfield wall after a line drive by Phillies third baseman Pedro Feliz. According to the Cardinals, Ankiel underwent X-rays and CT scans of his head, neck, and back late last night. All tests came back negative for fractures. The Cardinal’s GM John Mozeliak said that Ankiel had movement and feeling in both his arms and his legs, and the team doctor expects him to make a full recovery. According to the Cardinal’s team site, outfielder Chris Duncan was closest to Ankiel when the collision with the wall occured.
“He went down and I thought maybe he might be unconscious,” Duncan said. “So I tried to talk to him. I said, ‘Are you all right?’ and he said, ‘I think so. I’m just going to lay here.’ He said he had hit the wall hard and he [thought] he was all right, but he [was] not going to move. He said his back hurt a little bit, but he could feel everything and he didn’t want to move. I told him to hold on and that they were coming out.”
One might ask themselves if Ankiel had kept the mustache, could the injury have been prevented? My response is absolutely. The presence of an upper lip man-garden establishes itself not only in breathtaking looks, but in mass as well. The mass of the lip fur establishes itself within the equilibrium of the beholder within a week of its birth. Once Ankiel had rid himself of the follicle lip drapes, he had thrown off his equilibrium and essentially the cat-like balance needed to complete agile plays in centerfield.
While we are absolutely glad that Ankiel is uninjured and he will return to the diamond in the coming weeks, we hope this is a lesson to all who grow a mustache for fun and games. Suddenly growing and ridding yourself of a mustache will cause severe short term health effects, most notably in your bodily equilibrium. Don’t do it unless you are committed to refraining from athletic competition for at least 6 months.
*Note: A follow up on this can be found at the American Mustache Institute’s site. Perlut and the guys are currently experiencing a nationwide debate over a Utah mayor’s mustache and its questionable fate.