I kind of can’t wrap my head around the change in Rick Ankiel, who was last seen endangering the lives of umpires while pitching. He’s now playing center/right for STL, and batting .280.
Who are other players with huge sports turnarounds? They must not only be recovered, but doing a different job than before. This is more for the reshaped career than the comeback player of the decade type.
Danny Ainge gave up on his MLB career to play basketball for the Celtics.
Stan Musial started out as a pitcher, but after a shoulder injury, moved to the outfield. That worked out pretty well for him. 
Skip Lockwood came up with Kansas City as an infielder, couldn’t make it, then became a fairly decent relief pitcher.
Ankiel’s reclamation is absolutely amazing. It’s the stuff that books and movies are written about.
I believe Tim Wakefield was languishing in the minors as an outfielder before he learned to throw the knuckleball.
I just remembered Charlie Ward, who followed up winning the Heisman Trophy by playing for the Knicks.
It’s not really the same thing, but Bob Gibson was paid by the Cardinals to stop playing for the Globetrotters in the off season in the very early part of his career. That’s an all together different kind of talent.
There’s always Babe Ruth, although he was quite successful as a pitcher, so it probably doesn’t count as a turnaround.
I can think of more than a few cases of minor league pitchers or hitters being converted from one to the other. Ankiel’s case - a pitcher who made it to the majors on merit, had a complete meltdown, and then after quite a few seasons had passed came back as a hitter - is quite unlike anything else I can think of in modern baseball.
Not trying to threadshit or hijack, it’s just that I know next to nothing about the Ankiel story, and given the current state of baseball, I have to ask: Are performance enhancing drugs involved, or suspected? Or is this really the result of dedication and hard work on his part? (If it is, then good for him!)
Ankiel has admitted using human growth hormone in 2004 to recover from Tommy John surgery, before it was banned. That was before his transition to the outfield, however.
“…Rick Ankiel, who was last seen endangering the lives of innocent Americans everywhere in the stadium, whose only crime was coming to the ballpark that day, while pitching.” Fixed it for you.
BTW, Trevor Hoffman had a less-than-promising career as a shortstop before he perfected his devastating change-up. He’s still a pretty damn good batter (for a pitcher), but he’s lucky to get a handful of at-bats a year, being a closer and all.
I wonder sometimes how good a pitcher he would have been in the live-ball era he ushered in as a hitter.
I’ve never heard of any such rumblings. I don’t think he’s gotten any bigger, for one thing, and for another thing, he’d have to try pretty damn hard to find a non-detectable one to get around MLB’s strict(er) testing regimen.
Desmond Howard was wavering between mediocrity and outright failure when Mike Holmgren took a chance on him. He became the star of Super Bowl 31.
Matt “The Terror” Serra was just another MMA washed-up nobody when, for some inexplicable reason, The Ultimate Fighter, normally a show about the search for fresh, young fighting talent, did a season featuring washed-up nobodies. Serra made it to the final, then won a controversial 30-27/30-27/27-30 decision, setting up a title fight against Georges St. Pierre, a world-class figher who had recently wiped the foor with Matt Hughes. The fans didn’t think Serra would take the title from St. Pierre. Dana White didn’t think Serra would take the title from St. Pierre. Hell, Shonie Carter probably didn’t think Serra would take the title from St. Pierre. Serra took the title from St. Pierre. 
Andre Agassi. Damn, I could do a whole thread about him. Untimely death would have kept him out of the Hall of Fame; I’m not sure anything else would have.
And believe me, I’m as surprised as any of you that Bode Miller has been doing just fine latey. Here’s the latest.
I want to say Buster Douglas, but he’s more Steve Jennum than Rocky Balboa.
I can’t think of another athlete who had as many turnarounds as Agassi did. He was a real champion.
I’m not a stats lover per se, so can anyone offer insight on Hideki Matsui’s play before and after his bad wrist injury last season? Qualitatively he seems to have not only recovered well, but is playing better than he was before. Of course, that might also be an indication of how much his teammates are NOT contributing relative to him (A-Rod, I’m looking at you…), but it seems that he’s going through a pretty consistently good phase right now.
How about George Blanda?
He signed with the Bears in 1949 as a 3-way player (not unusual for the time) – quarterback, kicker and defensive linebacker. He became the Bears starting QB in 1953, but hurt his arm. He was replaced as starting QB, becoming just a placekicker. He retired after the 1957 season.
But in 1960 he came back to play in the new American Football League. He spent seven seasons as a QB with Houston, then was released. He then signed with Oakland as kicker and backup QB.
In 1970, Blanda was cut before pre-season but made the team again in training camp. Filling in for an injured Daryle Lamonica, he turned in clutch performances both as quarterback and kicker in five straight games and took the Raiders to the AFC championship game. He lasted five more seasons as kicker.
So we have a QB who injured his arm, stayed in the game as a kicker, retired for two years, then came back as a QB, went back to kicking, had one more burst of glory at QB, continued as a kicker and ended up playing 26 seasons, ending his career with the highest number of points scored at that time.
Ruth was considered among the best lefties of his day as a pitcher. He was supposedly on course for the Hall of Fame as a pitcher according to his contemporaries. (Yes, this was before the Hall existed, but his contemporaries did comment on it later, I have read a lot of old baseball books and for some reason Ruth is mentioned in nearly every one.)
Bob Lemon was a light hitting 3rd baseman early in his career. He switched to pitcher and made the Hall of Fame.
Do horses count?
Da Hoss won the 1996 Breeder’s Cup Mile at age four over international competition by a length and a half. The gelding was then out of training for nearly two years with foot problems before having a single prep race in 1998 in a simple allowance race (about 4-5 levels lower than BC competition) that he easily won.
His next start? The 1998 Breeder’s Cup Mile.
He won.
Unraced for nearly two years, out of training for over a year, six years old, would never race again…but he won.
He’s now enjoying retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park Hall of Champions.
Ruth’s record as a pitcher backs this up. He might have been hurt by the end of the dead ball era, but more likely, he would have been like Walter Johnson, who continued to win. (Trivia: Ruth started five games for the Yankees and won them all.)
Comparable to Ankiel: Smokey Joe Wood. He was an even more successful pitcher than Ankiel – his record was 117-57 with an ERA of 2.03 (ERA+ of 146, so he was almost 50% better than the rest of baseball). He was even a 30 game winner. But he broke a thumb after his best season, struggled and sat out a year before coming back as an outfielder. He had a solid five years (and a world series appearance, one of the few to appear in the World Series as both a pitcher and an outfielder) before retiring.
Speaking of the breeders mile, do you remember Royal academy and Lester Piggot winning it in 1990? (youtube link here)
Lester Piggot is one of the most successful flat jockeys of all time. Racing is popular across the UK, so it’s fair to say that he was a household name here. Anyhow, he retires in 1985 having ridden 4500 winners. In 1987 he gets sent to jail for tax evasion - huge scandal, widespread coverage in the tabloid press. Gets 3 years (he really had been taking the piss out of the inland revenue IIRC), and serves one inside. Get’s stripped of his OBE such is the public aprobium. Comes back out and announces that he’s ready to race again, with his first race being the Breeder’s cup mile at the age of 54! His win, in such style, is now part of racing folklore.
Micah Owings is currently making the case.