Ricky Nolasco Inducted Into Sammy Sosa's "Hall Of Weird, Funny And Dumb Baseball Injuries"

The South Sun Florida Sentel is reporting that Ricky Nolasco's season may be over after sustaining "a 'medium' tear to the meniscus ligament in his right knee" while tying his shoe.

Why the Marlins would not make up a less embarrassing reason for the injury is beyond me, but with this injury, Ricky Nolasco joins the infamous annuls of "embarrassing ways baseball players have injured themselves." I dub this place Sammy Sosa's "Hall Of Weird, Funny And Dumb Baseball Injuries." Click the name links for more information.

1. Joel Zumaya injured his arm while playing guitar hero.
2. Adam Eaton stabbed himself with a knife while trying to open a DVD.
3. Brandon Inge, a power hitter, injured himself lifting a pillow.
4. Glenallen Hill, who once hit a 900 hundred foot home run at Wrigley, cut and banged him himself up good while sleepwalking into a glass table and then falling down a staircase while dreaming about spiders.
5. Pitcher Steve Sparks once tried to rip a phone book in half at a motivational seminar. The only thing he inspired was a DL stint.
   
6. This is less a bizarre injury type, so much as a hilarious injury comment. Pitcher Dizzy Dean was once beaned in the head by a line drive and given x-rays. Said Dean: "they took X-rays of my head and found nothing."
7. Outfielder Marty Cordova once fell asleep in a tanning bed. Boy was his face red.
8. Superhero leadoff man Rickey Henderson did a lot of funny things in his career (i.e., checking into hotels under the names "Richard Pryor" and "James Brown"), but he was not laughing when he was frostbit as a result of falling asleep with an icepack on his leg while treating an ankle injury.
   
9. Hunter Pence once injured himself running into a glass sliding door. To be fair however, it's happened to the best of us (sometimes twice).
10. Nolasco is not the only baseball player who sustained a bizarre injury this season. Kendy Morales was hurt while jumping for joy following a walk off grand slam. Chris Coghlan (also of the Marlins) was injured pie-ing Wes Helms in the face.
    
11. Red Sox Pitcher Clarence Blethen once bit himself in the ass. According to WEEI.com (which lists a handful of other weird/funny Boston sports injuries in this article),

    "Blethen didn’t have many teeth and he figured that he could use that to his advantage. When on the mound, he would take out his fake teeth and put them in his back pocket, intimidating the batter (at least in theory). The story goes that one game, he forgot to take them out of his back pocket when he was running the bases, and he slid into second to break up a double play with the teeth still in the pocket. Blethen would have to be taken out of the game because he literally bit himself in the butt. He wouldn’t pitch again in the majors for another six years."

12. John Smoltz once burnt himself ironing a shirt . . . that he was wearing.
    
13. Detroit pitcher Matt Anderson hurt his armpit in an silly Octopus-throwing promotion to win Red Wings tickets. He was never the same.
    
14. Ryan Dempster broke his toe (and those of millions of Cubs fans) when he attempted to leap over the dugout railing. This is almost as embarrassing as when Carlos Zambrano injured himself checking his email. Check out Dempster's name link for more bizarre Cubs-related sports injuries.
    
15. Wade Boggs injured himself removing his beloved cowboy boots.
    
16. Moises Alou injured himself when he ran over his own son with a bike (while recovering from a knee injury, no less).
    
17. Charlie Hough broke his pinky "pinky swearing."
18. Milton Bradley was injured while regular swearing. Bradley suffered a season-ending knee injury (ACL tear) while being restrained from going at it with Umpire Mike Winters by Padres manager Bud Blac.
19. Mark Smith injured his hand by placing it inside an air conditioner to check why it wasn’t working. This one, along with Oddibe McDowell's roll-buttering finger cut, are Darwin Award bad.
    
20. Speedster Vince Coleman, who has a special place in TBO's heart, was injured during game 4 of the 1985 NLCS when his leg was run over by the tarp rolling machine.
    
21. And of course, who could forget the infamous Sammy Sosa, who hurt his back sneezing during the disastrous 2004 season. Mat Latos also accomplished this feat earlier this year, but sneezing injuries are so six years ago.
22. Russell Branyan missed some time after falling out of his chair at a pizza joint trying to pick up a flip flop.
    

An honorable mention goes out to Jeff Kent, who claims he was injured in 2002 while "washing his truck." I put that in quotes, and Kent only gets an honorable mention here, because it is widely believe that the true cause of Kent's injury was doing wheelies on his motorcycle.

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