Freak Injuries or Stupidity?

Baseball players are athletes…barely. Baseball is easily the least physically demanding out of the four major North American sports, and pales in comparison to the rigours of soccer.

John Kruk, who was never the poster boy for gym memberships, was a three-time All-Star and a career .300 hitter (with an OBP close to .400) over 10 major league seasons. He even titled his autobiography I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady.

Kruk certainly isn’t representative of all major leaguers, but his success suggests that you don’t necessarily have to be in good shape to be a good baseball player. In fact, the old adage was that working out would actually hinder a baseball player’s ability. The conventional wisdom was that increased muscularity would affect a player’s ability to hit inside fastballs because it would take away from their bat speed. I suppose the steroid era changed that thinking drastically.

Because of baseball’s less than athletic requirements I always find it funny when players injure themselves in hilarious fashion. This year there have already been two prime candidates for hilarity. However, I haven’t really been laughing considering both players were supposed to be integral parts of my fantasy baseball team.

Jimmy Rollins injured his calf with stretching before an April game against the Nationals. Seriously? Stretching? Come on Jimmy. He re-injured the same calf mere days after he was activated from the disabled list. He’s been limited to 12 games this year. He’s supposed to return from his second DL stint at the end of this weekend, but I’m not holding my breath.

The other funnier (for everyone but me) and more debilitating injury happened to Angel’s first baseman Kendry Morales. Morales hit a walk-off grand slam against the Seattle Mariners and proceeded to fracture his ankle while celebrating at home plate. Yes, he slipped on home plate and snapped his ankle. He is out for the rest of the season. This is unfortunate because Morales had appeared in every game for the Angels and was hitting .290 with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs.

Blue Jays pitcher Brett Cecil had a set-back this spring when he cut his hand while making food, which actually turned out to be a fortuitous injury. The injury forced Cecil to throw only fastballs and change-ups. The development of his change-up has turned Cecil into a more effective pitcher. Cecil is 7-3 with a 3.58 ERA and is a big reason for the Jays’ surprising success this season.

Cecil’s injury isn’t nearly as bad as Ricky Romero’s first stint on the DL last season. Romero strained his oblique while sneezing. He attempted to pitch through the injury, but left during his next start as a precaution. You know baseball is hazardous when you have to be careful how you sneeze.

These injuries aren’t necessarily aberrations. It seems like the history of the MLB is littered with tales of major leaguers who are placed on the disabled list for bizarre reasons.

Wade Boggs once missed seven games after he strained his back while putting on cowboy boots.

John Smoltz once scalded himself while ironing a shirt… that he was still wearing…

Bret Barberie, best known for being the husband of TV personality Jillian Barberie, missed a game because he accidentally rubbed chilli juice in his eyes.

Rich Harden, now of the Texas Rangers, once strained his shoulder turning off his alarm clock. This is a man who has only once started more than 30 games and pitched in less than 75 innings in 2006 and 2007 combined, so maybe it isn’t entirely surprising that the alarm clock was his undoing in this instance.

During the 2006 ALCS flame throwing reliever Joel Zumaya of the Detroit Tigers missed three games because of inflammation in his right throwing wrist. This was caused by excessively playing Guitar Hero.

Sometimes teammates get in on the fun as well. Doc Gooden missed a start because his teammate struck him with a golf club in the locker room. It was allegedly accidental, but if Doc Gooden was involved then there was probably some drug money owed (oh, that’s just hateful of me).

Then there are the countless times a player (most often a pitcher) breaks their hand or wrist attacking a water cooler or punching a wall. What are these players thinking! That’s their money-maker! Example: John Tudor, upset with his performance in the 1985 World Series, punched an electric fan and tore up his hand.

Speaking of anger, Milton Bradley once tore his knee confronting an umpire over a dubious call. There was allegedly some racial remarks said to Bradley, which is what caused his ire, but we’ll never know for sure. What we do know for sure is that Milton Bradley is certifiably crazy.

These may all sound stupid, but often players make up stupid excuses to hide what they were really doing. Yes, it’s possible telling people you fractured your wrist washing your car is less stupid than something else. That’s what Jeff Kent told team officials, except rumours are he broke it doing tricks on his motorcycle (which was a breach of his contract).

There are literally hundreds of these injuries that plague baseball players. Yes, Bobby Baun can score an overtime goal on a broken leg in the Stanley Cup Final, but certain baseball players can’t seem to put on a pair of boots or eat a donut without taking a trip to the DL.