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.
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.