MVN - Most Valuable Network

Put This Under Your Pillow . . .

Hall of Famer Jim Palmer once missed a start with a stiff neck because, he said, he forgot to bring his favourite pillow aboard a cross-country flight. Palmer now has company in the pillow talk division of baseball’s whackiest verified injuries.

Brandon Inge’s wife may find herself thinking twice before letting her husband hog the pillows or their three-year-old son continue to creep into bed with Mother and Dad. She might be afraid to aggravate what her husband did trying to push a pillow down more comfortably for the boy.

“That’s a first,” said Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland about Inge rejoining the fifteen-day infirmary list with a restrained oblique. Just wait until Inge comes up to the plate his first day back. If it’s in the road ballpark, he shouldn’t be surprised if fans start waving (or throwing) pillows at him . . . or the road PA operator hits him with a chorus of Sylvia’s saucy-whispery oldie, “Pillow Talk.”

Is Inge’s the most bizarre baseball injury of all time? Good question. The log is thick enough.

Just don’t call John Smoltz on the subject. Ol’ Ironsides once thought the best way to press his shirt was to be sure that he was in it. At least Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux got to lament, “Chicks dig the long ball,” in a Nike commercial. Smoltz was probably lucky that he didn’t get endorsement offers from Niagara Spray Starch.

Don’t call former Minnesota Twins product David Foster, either. Especially if there’s stormy weather in the air. Foster lost an entire season on the telephone when he got zapped by lightning through the line.

If lightning doesn’t strike terror into the heart of a hypochondriacal ballplayer, the phone book might. Consider Steve Sparks, giving a motivational speech, with some in the audience inspired to rip phone books in half, inspiring him to try it himself . . . and dislocate his shoulder for his effort.

And, speaking of Tom Glavine, that future Hall of Famer isn’t exactly a stranger to freak injuries on the telephone himself. Once upon a time, during his seasons with the Mets, the Glavine kids probably couldn’t resist singing “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”—after Dad got his knocked out, while talking to his wife on the cell phone, when the cab in which he was riding from La Guardia Airport stopped short, slamming Glavine face first into the rear end of the front seat.

Modern technology a lot less complicated than a cell phone can instigate freak injuries. Consider the shrinkwrap on a compact disc or DVD package. It’s only slightly less easier to break into that than it is to break into a vault. Adam Eaton should be able to tell you how not to try it. Eaton once stabbed himself in the stomach trying to unwrap a DVD wrap with a paring knife. (Jason Isringhausen probably sent him a sympathy card: Izzy once stabbed himself opening a slightly less arduous package.)

Speaking of DVDs, I wouldn’t be too quick to invite Glenallen Hill to any festival of Spider-Man movies any time soon. He probably still can’t believe that what began as having a genuine nightmare about being covered in spiders ended with him rolling out of bed and crashing into a glass table.

And speaking of music, it’s probably not a good idea to play Johnny Cash’s career-launching “Hey, Porter” in Dave Kingman’s earshot, either. Kong once dislocated a shoulder hoisting his own luggage down the steps of a hotel. On the other hand, Kingman, an avid hunter (though he’s said to be more for game birds than game quadripeds), would have understood Clint Barmes’s predicament, when the Rockies’ then-rookie broke a collarbone hauling deer meat up a flight of stairs.

Kevin Mitchell may or may not be a huntsman, but he is known to have lost his lunch at least once and strained a muscle doing it. Mitchell had his problems with snacks, too. He once needed near-immediate root canal work . . . after eating a microwaved donut.

Food and freak injuries seem married for life. Rick Honeycutt once suffered a wrist injury flipping sunflower seeds in the clubhouse. Bret Barberie once missed a game or two after accidentally rubbing his eye with chili juice. On the other hand, freak injuries are nothing to sneeze at—unless you’re Sammy Sosa, the man who pulled a muscle with a violent sneeze.

Freak injuries don’t just give rival pitchers a break from big boppers. Sometimes, those injuries give them a break from grand theft felons. It wasn’t the Kansas City Royals’ pitching staff who kept Vince Coleman off the bases in the 1985 World Series, it was the old Busch Stadium automatic tarp roller. Vincent Van Go managed to get his foot gobbled by the gizmo before the Series had even begun. Some in St. Louis still think the Royals should have been sports and given the Busch grounds crew a winner’s Series share.

And there were those who were thankful to whatever it was that caused the frostbite that caused Rickey (The Man of Steal) Henderson to miss a few games . . . one August.

Whirlpools have been as common as beer in baseball clubhouses, but even a Hall of Famer can get hosed by the whirlpool if he isn’t careful. Ask Bob Feller. Rapids Robert once scalded himself from the waist down when he couldn’t control the whirlpool’s hose. Fast forward to contemporary life and Larry Andersen, who once strained a rib muscle stepping out of a Jacuzzi.

Players don’t always get injured in bench-clearing brawls. Sometimes, they get injured trying to join them. Ted Power did. He once pulled a hamstring leaping from the bullpen bench to join in the fun.

They often get injured out of abject frustration. Kevin Brown—who once aggravated an already bothersome back into a DL stint doing nothing more dangerous than playing with his children at home—didn’t exactly invent the syndrome of the poor sap who breaks his hand trying to beat up the wall after a bad outing. Perhaps someone cheered him up by sending (assuming it exists) video of the day Darren Daulton injured his hand trying to beat up a wall—after watching himself striking out while viewing video of recent at-bats.

C’mere and Pull My Finger, Dammit!—Paul Molitor, who dislocated a knuckle once . . . when it got stuck in someone else’s glove. Pleased to Break Your Acquaintance—Charlie Hough, the knuckleballer who once broke his pinkie . . . while shaking hands. These Boots Are Made For Walkin’—Wade Boggs, who once missed seven games after straining his back . . . when he fell back into a couch while pulling on a pair of cowboy boots.

Lefty Gomez wasn’t pulling on his footwear, but the Yankee Hall of Famer was trying to knock some dirt out of his spikes with a bat . . . and ended up breaking his ankle, instead. That was nothing compared to the time Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons fell asleep in a rocking chair, while chatting with Bill Terry and Rogers Hornsby, and rolled the rocker right over the fingers on his own pitching hand.

But I’m still not sure any of the foregoing have yet rolled Clarence (Climax) Blethen off his pinnacle.

It’s going to take way more than pillow talk to take Blethen down as the freakiest of the freak. This Boston Red Sox rookie carried a set of false teeth that he’d wear on the mound to look more ferocious but keep in his hip pocket when he wasn’t on the mound. Three guesses who forgot what was where, on that glorious 21 September 1923, when Blethen slid into second base to break up a double play.

That may have been the only time a major league player did things right on the field and got his butt chewed for it, anyway.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 4:21 am and is filed under Freak Accidents/Injuries, Catbird. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.