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.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy reading about some of baseball's top pranks.

Michael Jackson is alive!

I'd like to say that i doctored this photo in microsoft paint, but unfortunately i did not. Nor is this some creepy halloween costume. Nope, it's Sammy showing up at the Latin Grammy awards looking at tad pale. Speculation is that Sammy either had a botched plastic surgery(no), has vitiligo(doubt it), simply put on too much make-up(no se), steroid side effects(si senor). You would think his wife would notice his discoloration, but she's probably too busy looking at herself in the mirror. Can't blame her

Big League Stew

Admit it you miss Sammy Sosa

I had zero expectations for the Home Run Derby this year and amazingly I was still incredibly underwhelmed. There was no passion from the players, the crowd, or even Chris "Back Back Back" Berman himself. Yes, Nelson Cruz impressed with his pure power and Prince's gyrating belly produced some laughs, but the demonstration as a whole did not impress. If given the chance to attend the derby, I think I would have declined the invitation and stayed happily at home. Outside of the slim chance of rubbing elbows, among other things, with Alyssa Milano, there is really nothing that I would have enjoyed at the derby in Busch Stadium.

This is becoming a scary trend of boredom that baseball needs to rectify in order to compete with the hip, new-age marketing of the NFL, NBA, and even the NHL. As the younger generations are being lured more and more to other sports dues to the glamorization of athletes in the NBA and NFL, the national past-time is becoming just that. Of the past. Who is the Lebron James of the MLB? Wade? Shaq? Brady? Even Vick? Arod is probably the most recognizable face in major league baseball, but that has to do more with his hookers, unclutchiness, and purple lipstick as opposed to being a hero to the masses.

Outside of the Josh Hamilton performance, when was the last inspiring HR derby? All the good ones were all a product of steroids. Obviously that is a thing of the past, and unless they start dispensing heroin, the Hamilton story will never be repeated. Was anyone taken aback by Bobby Abreu, Miguel Tejada, Ryan Howard? I will never forget the Big Mac performance of '99. Sammy Sosa in Atlanta and Milwaukee will stay with me for eternity. Steroids were the great marketing campaign for the MLB for 2 decades, now Bud Selig will have to wake up from him 10 year nap and maybe make a commercial outside of those Boy and Girls Club ads. All-star weekend should be the main national advertisement of baseball, but instead we get a bland production featuring Chris Berman. I hope you're psyched for Joe Buck tomorrow night. I know I'm not

Question Of The Day #2

Right now, Albert Pujols has 30 home runs over the course of 78 games (265 PA). That's a home run per every 8.83 at bats, or a long ball per every 2.6 games. Extrapolating the same size, Pujols in on pace for a 550 AB season with 62+ home runs. Even with the league leading 24 IBBs (second is Adrian Gonzalez with 11), Pujols' pace this season far and away surpasses his monstrous 2006 campaign that was shortened by injury (535 PA, 49 HR). Thus, a pair of important questions that collectively make up today's QUESTION OF THE DAY are posed:

1) Will Pujols eclipse 60 home runs this season, or will pitchers be less inclined to pitch to The Machine in the second half? Will Pujols slow down or need more rest down the stretch?
2) If Prince Albert does indeed eclipse 60 home runs this season, how do we regard the single-season home run record with regard to the tainted legacies of Barry Bonds (73), Mark MwGwire (70) and Slammin' Sammy (66, 64, 63)? Do we crown Pujols the unquestioned champion or leave the records as they are, however tainted they may be.

Personally, I believe that if Pujols does achieve the 60 HR milestone, he should be crowned the true home run king, with BB, MM and SS being listed as asterisked footnotes in the Guiness Book of World Records. As much as I defend the legacies of the bulk of great players who were on roids (its not like you inject and succeed -- you still need to train your ass off; plus MVPs who can't hit 20 HRs (let alone any that eclipsed 400 FT in length) are boring), I feel that the home run title is something pure and accomplished that transcends VORP. In other words, it must be truly earned.

On a final note, the term BB is not an abbreviation for Base on Balls. It refers to Barry Bonds, who was intentionally walked 120 times in 2004 [232 BB that season]. Only three times in the history of baseball has a batter been intentionally walked more than 45 times. All three of those instances belong to Barry Bonds (the other two were 68 and 61 IBB seasons). Pujols is on pace for 51.

Strikeout Problems

There have been many players past and present who have had a difficult time avoiding the strikeout. Bobby Bonds was the first great strikeout artists having seasons of 187 and 189 K's. Sammy Sosa had eclipsed 170 3 times in his career. The record has been broken several times in the past 5 years by Adam Dunn and Ryan Howard who has topped out at 199 twice(so close). Last year Justin Upton found that it is difficult to make contact with major league pitching at the age of 20. In a single month, he managed to strike out 40 times in only 88 at-bats. Personally, i thought it would be very hard to eclipse that K rate over that many at-bats. However, every year brings new players who get into a massive funk and accumulate strikeouts in bunches.

First, Braves rookie Jordan Schafer came close by fanning 37 times in his first 87 at-bats. However, he has slightly improved his contact rate. However, the king of the strikeout this year has been Chris David. After striking out 88 times in 295 at-bats in his partial season last year, he has already strikeout 71 times the first 158 at-bats for a sweat 44% K rate. I'm pretty sure that would be a record. Assuming that he reaches 600 at-bats which is a fair estimation, he would accumulate approximately 250 strikeouts. WOW! Zips projections are being very modest projecting Davis to finish with 195 K's on the season. My experience has shown that players tendto get worse instead of better when it comes to making contact and I'll predict that David does break the record of 199 assuming he reaches 550 at-bats. Adding his low walk rate of 6% makes Davis a scary player to have, not in a good way.

Sigh

Does anyone remember a week or so ago when I said that Rick Sutcliffe made a boo-boo on air and said Jeff Francoeur injured himself by sneezing? Well he's doing it again. Someone should probably tell him that he's thinking of Sammy Sosa. Sutcliffe is (starting to sound) stupid. God forbid an ESPN analyst say something (stupid and) incorrect on air.