MLB Injuries: Seth Lugo’s toe and other strange baseball injuries
New York Mets pitcher Seth Lugo banged his foot in his hotel room. He may have to do a lot worse to qualify for these MLB injuries from the Twilight Zone.
Another season-to-be, another somewhat freakish baseball injury. The newest victim is Seth Lugo, the New York Mets righthanded relief pitcher, who’s going to miss three days’ work at least after fracturing his left pinkie toe… when he inadvertently banged it in his hotel room. It’s a little difficult to land, as Lugo does on his left foot, when he delivers when even one toe is compromised like that.
Toe injuries are far more consequential than people often believe. When Hall of Famer Earl Averill hit one off the big toe of fellow Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, in the 1937 All-Star Game, Dean altered his motion to compensate for the fracture and ruined his shoulder. It’s the major reason why Dean went from never better his first six years to just another pitcher in the second half of his career.
Lugo can take comfort. He’d have to do a lot more than just an inadvertent bang on his foot to join the roster of baseball’s most outlandish-seeming injuries.
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A little less than a year ago, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell got a message by way of his toe that there’s a right and a wrong way to handle heavy objects.
Snell thought a granite decorative stand in his bathroom didn’t look quite right where it was. So, he elected to move it. Forgetting that it was a four-piece structure weighing eighty pounds in total. Uh, oh.
A heavy enough portion landed on the fourth toe of Snell’s landing foot, costing him some time on the injured list. The lefthander was distinctly unamused.
“It’s right outside the shower,” he told The Athletic. “I was like, ‘I’m moving this, it looks stupid.’ I went to move it, I lifted it up and it wasn’t glued to the pole. And the pole came crashing down. Really dumb. That’s what happened.”
Foolish is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but whether or not the New York Mets righty and Tampa Bays ace’s toe injuries qualify high on baseball’s long enough roll of bizarre MLB injuries is probably a matter of perspective.
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.
The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries
Jamie Easterly, pitcher, 1980
This middle relief specialist had less to fear from gopher balls (a measly 48 surrendered in thirteen major league seasons) than from gophers themselves. His conditioning habit of backward-running exercises put him in the hole . . . when he hit a gopher hole and suffered a season-costing back injury.
Ernie Camacho, pitcher, 1980s
A somewhat flaky Cleveland Indians reliever, Camacho went on the disabled list once after a complaint about—wait for it!—autograph elbow. It seems Camacho was signing for charity one fine spring training when he took it to the team trainer complaining about pain in his right elbow, his signing as well as pitching elbow.
(The more I remember Camacho’s story, the more I appreciate writing lefthanded but playing guitar, and throwing, righthanded.)
George Brett, third baseman,1983
On an off-day for the Kansas City Royals, their Hall of Famer ran from his kitchen to his living room, the better not to miss his buddy Bill Buckner hit during a Chicago Cubs game on television. En route, Brett smashed and broke his toe, proving bad things come to those who can’t wait.
Vince Coleman, outfielder, 1985
His speed on the bases earned his nickname Vincent Van Go. If only the man who set the National League’s rookie stolen base record that year was that swift escaping the old Busch Stadium tarp-rolling machine before Game Four of the National League Championship Series. No such luck. Coleman suffered a bone chip in his knee and a badly bruised foot, costing him the rest of that postseason.
The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries
Nolan Ryan, pitcher, 1985
The Express could throw the lamb chop past ten wolves, but he couldn’t get his hand past a coyote pup he found on a countryside drive. The critter bit him on the finger, costing him a start. For once in his life, Wile E. Coyote (famishius nippibus) nailed the Road Runner (fastballicus supersonicus).
Wade Boggs, third baseman,1986
The Red Sox’s Hall of Famer missed a week with a wrenched back he suffered when . . . pulling up a pair of cowboy boots. The Chicken Man proved the hazard of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Glenallen Hill, outfielder, 1990
The Toronto Blue Jays’ sophomore fell out of bed . . . right into and through a glass table, suffering bruises and cuts on elbows, knees, and legs, as he awoke violently from . . . a nightmare about spiders. Now, I wonder: Has he been seen since watching any of the film exploits of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?
Rickey Henderson, outfielder, 1993
Baseball’s arguable greatest leadoff man ever found himself put on ice for three August games. The Man of Steal dozed off with an ice bag on his foot, suffering a nasty case of frostbite. Ice, ice, baby!
Steve Sparks, pitcher, 1994
Remember when you were a child and your mother challenged you about going along with the crowd: “I suppose if Billy Bestie jumps off the bridge you’d have to jump off the bridge, too?” Sparks decided that just because a motivational speaker he’d seen ripped a thick telephone book in half he could rip a thick telephone book in half, too.
Except that the shoulder he dislocated trying told him, nastily, “That’s what you think!”
The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries
Bret Barberie, infielder, 1995
Call it a case of chili con cornea: Barberie missed a game after making nachos with a teammate . . . and inadvertently sprinkling chili oil into his eyes.
David Cone, pitcher, 1998
Dog bites man isn’t news. Man bites dog is news, sometimes. Dog bites son put Cone in the news when his mother’s Jack Russel terrier took a nip of his finger. Then-Yankee manager Joe Torre had to hand Cone’s starting assignment to a rookie with a fine enough career to come in his own right: Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez.
Marty Cordova, outfielder, 2002
He suffered a severe sunburn across his face . . . on a tanning bed. Either he forgot the Coppertone or figured he didn’t need it indoors.
Clint Barmes, infielder, 2005
He was heading for a potential National League Rookie of the Year award when teammate Todd Helton presented him with some choice deer meat . . . and Barmes tried hauling the side of venison himself until he fell over and broke his collarbone. His career went to journeyman after his recovery. It may be safe to assume that Bambi isn’t one of his favorite films.
Ken Griffey, Jr., outfielder, 2006
The cup that’s supposed to protect the family jewels failed the Hall of Famer when it pinched his testicle. The good news is that Junior developed a sense of humor about it. When Hall of Famer-in-waiting Adrian Beltre became a Mariners teammate, the third baseman suffered his own testicle injury. Griffey arranged to have Beltre serenaded upon his return—with Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries
Chris Coghlan, outfielder, 2010
The Miami Marlins have enough surreal horror in their recent history without what happened to Coghlan: following up a Rookie of the Year season, Coghlan decided teammate Wes Helms needed a pie in the face to celebrate ending a game with a bases-loaded single. As Coghlan administered the confection while Helms stood for a post-game interview, he fell and tore the meniscus in his left knee.
The injury cost Coghlan as it was: he wouldn’t be as good as his rookie season in any of the eight major league seasons he had to follow. But if Helms won that game with a grand slam, would Coghlan have been tempted to hit him with the whole bakery?
Joba Chamberlain, pitcher, 2012
Chamberlain had enough trouble in his career, with the Yankees never quite sure how to deploy him, without the day he went trampolining with his young son—and dislocated his ankle. The midges that swarmed him infamously in Cleveland during a postseason game were mere nuisances by comparison.
Jonathan Lucroy, catcher, also 2012
They won’t make a movie called Honey, I Forgot to Look about this: Lucroy reached for a stray sock under his hotel room bed . . . without seeing his wife fiddling with a suitcase on top of the bed. The luggage took a dive over the edge and onto Lucroy’s hand, injuring it severely. Lucroy actually tried to hide the injury until he couldn’t hide how well he couldn’t grip his bat and then hit the disabled list.
The Most Bizarre MLB Injuries
Stephen Strasburg, pitcher, also 2012
There was a reason then-Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson looked merciful when he lifted Strasburg after a horror of a four-inning outing: the righthander saw and raised Griffey and Beltre—inadvertently getting some Icy Hot balm on his private parts. I burned for the man that day, actually.
Speaking from very embarrassing experience, that’s the kind of mishap that usually (though maybe not exclusively) happens when your underwear is pranked in a high school locker room or while you’re away at summer camp. When I got hit, in summer camp, the stuff was something called Atomic Balm. And it felt exactly the way you’d expect with a name like that.
Mark Buehrle, pitcher, 2012 (what the hell was going on that season?)
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He should have said, “Hold the mayo”—he sliced his finger opening a mayonnaise jar just hours before he was scheduled to start a game. Buehrle made the start anyway . . . and was murdered in the first inning.
The foregoing is probably just a half sample. Enough to raise questions as to what on earth is it with major league pitchers, who seem to dominate baseball’s bizarre bang-ups list. And a lot of these guys were probably lucky their mishaps didn’t happen while their teams were covered by particularly snarky writers.
Just ask Casey Stengel what happened to him before he was a genius (with apologies to Warren Spahn) and while he was still the manager of the hapless Boston Braves. Before Opening Day 1943, Stengel was run down by a cab driver while crossing Commonwealth Avenue, suffering a leg fracture and missing the season’s first two months.
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The Ol’ Perfesser got a lot of well-wishes, some addressed jokingly to the hospital’s psychiatric ward. But there was also acidic Boston Record columnist Dave Egan, who loathed Stengel as much as he loathed Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams. When Stengel was injured, Egan suggested an award should be given—to the cab driver who hit him. For doing Boston baseball its biggest favor of the year.