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

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.