ST. LOUIS — As a teenager, even the years before he became a teen phenom, Rick Ankiel would walk around with a ball in his left hand and flip it over and over and over again, trying to improve his curveball grip and get the ball to spin ever faster.
With each flip of the ball, his thumb would glance against his finger to create the unmistakable sound of a snap, and it grew so loud that it came to symbolize the pitch. During one spring training batting practice, Mark McGwire heard the snap before he saw the curveball and christened Ankiel’s pitch, “The Snapdragon.