MLB Injuries: Seth Lugo’s toe and other strange baseball injuries

The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries

Clarence Blethen, pitcher, 1923

Not exactly one of the game’s more memorable pitchers, Bethen habitually put his false teeth into his pocket, thinking he’d look more ferocious on the mound when they were out. But then he hit a double in a game, slid hard into second base . . . and took a bite in the butt from the pocketed choppers. That’s not what they meant when they told you about sinking your teeth into your work.

Jim Lonborg, pitcher, 1967

The Boston Red Sox’s freshly-minted Cy Young Award winner liked skiing during the off-season. Unfortunately, that sport decided to hate him back that winter: he tore ligaments in his left knee going down the slopes (reputedly, but never affirmed, with film star Jill St. John), costing him half of 1968, compromising his career (he’d never again been as good as he was in ’67), and inspiring an amendment to the uniform player’s contract about certain off-season activities.

Lonborg eventually took up a safer practice that sank other people’s teeth into his work: he became a dentist after his baseball career ended.

Cecil Upshaw, pitcher, 1970

The Atlanta Braves relief star thought it might be a fine idea to demonstrate his basketball slam-dunk technique on the street—but he caught his ring in a store awning, damaging ligaments in his hand and costing him the entire season. He, too, would never be the same pitcher after the injury as he’d been before it.