it’s anyone that has strength, stamina, or agility. you don’t have to have all three. Or it could mean that you participate in a sport that requires a physical skill. how much more clear can it be? I think everyone has been brainwashed by advertising into thinking that a certain body type means athlete, rather than the real definition.

could dunk a basketball.

better than a professional wrestler!

one of my all-time favorite baseball quotes. It’s a shame Kruk has turned into a cartoon on TV.

I will graduate from medical school in june, and will be entering orthopedic surgery residency (location to be determined in the next couple months) at that time. I have spent 5 of the last 6 months of my life on orthopedics services, and since silent bob hasn’t been chiming in as much lately I can pass on some of my impressions in the mean time.

random thoughts from a sleep deprived guy post-call:

1) you really can’t trust anything that is said publicly about athletes’ heath statuses. they often release only the most minimal amount of information, generally leaving out of the press release any criteria for accurately assessing prognoses.

2) just because an mri says something is torn doesn’t mean it is – well kind of. Not everything is as cut and dry as an ACL tear in your knee (rotator cuff, labrum, ulnar collateral ligament, etc), and even if there is tearing or fraying or stretching suspected, it’s often hard to know definitively without an earlier comparison scan. Even the best scans are wrong more than you’d imagine.

3) Tears aren’t always fixable, and even if you find something wrong and fix it, it may not have been what was causing the symptoms.

4) We all get wear and tear on our joints. If you did mri’s on all of us reading this website you’d find problems with meniscus and rotator cuff and labrum all over the place. it doesn’t bother most of us and many will never know they ever had a problem. Re: Ozzie’s shoulder – I can’t imagine ANY major league veterans don’t have some pathologic changes with their cuff. we homosapiens really aren’t made to throw 90 mph for years and years.

5) how can albert’s elbow (ligament problem) be horrible and ok at the same time? The ulnar collateral ligament (or MCL of elbow) has multiple layers and is really not something that snaps like it was cut by a knife. It stretches, frays, re-scars as part of the healing process, and may very well be still in tact on the deeper layer. While tommy john surgery is not that huge of a deal procedurally, I can believe that he is felt to be able to get by as is.

6) how can albert’s elbow (nerve transposition) allow him to be there for spring training? this really, really is not a big deal. caveat – see random thought #1. who knows if this was the only reason the procedure is done. the ulnar nerve is tethered normally at your “funny bone.” his slips over when he flexes – that’s pretty common. I have probably seen ten cases where we had to repair something in the area and to minimize the chance that the nerve gets irritated we would prophylacticly “transpose” it to a less taught position. If that’s all that was done he’ll feel great in weeks, not months.

arghh. I’m tired and am probably not making coherent thoughts. I’ll try to make more sense when I can keep my eyes open.

Surely Ozzie did that at times, but what I recall him doing was taking roundabout routes to get to balls so that he gloved them with his momentum going towards first base, then tossing it over there in a way that took advantage of his momentum. Strange to describe, I realize, but that’s what he did. It was a very hard feat to pull off, but then again, we’re talking about Ozzie Smith here.

Here you go:
http://books.google.com/books?id=c8atyj4237wC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=ozzie+smith+throws+to+first&source=web&ots=KYiOhsIOnr&sig=RZEWY_U-4DZIK9AJno1pHumSUJo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

what a wuss!

once played three full seasons without a bat. He’d just throw his hand in front of the pitch and try to take it to the opposite field.