WEIRDEST BASEBALL INJURIES

As we all know baseball can be a very unpredictable sport. You never want to see a player on the disabled list, but sometimes accidents happen. Typically these accidents happen on the field, during practice, or during a workout. But sometimes players make their way to the DL for injuries that have nothing to do with the game itself.

The Mets are always...a mess. As a Mets fan myself I know this firsthand. Remember that guy Yoenis Cespedes? Yeah me neither. But he has not actually played a game since July 20, 2018 due to multiple ankle fractures. It has just recently come to light that he suffered these injuries from stepping into a hole after being frightened by a wild boar. You read that correctly. A wild BOAR!

Another interesting injury happened to Carl Pavano in 2013. At the time he was a free agent and was still looking for work, he was a Yankee at one point in his career. He was shoveling his driveway after a bad storm and fell into the shovel's handle. Although it hurt, he did not think anything of it until a few days later when he had a sudden wave of abdominal pain and nausea. It turns out he was bleeding internally the whole time and his lung had collapsed! He then retired from baseball, and hopefully now hires other people to shovel his snow.

A memorable injury happened to Trevor Bauer of the Indians in 2016. During the ALCS, his pitching hand was dripping blood onto the mound. Why? He cut his right pinkie trying to repair his drone, and was sliced by the propellers. His stitches opened in the first inning and he had to leave the game.

For the last one I will throw it back to the 90s. Glenallen Hill of the Blue Jays showed up to the ballpark on crutches, covered in bruises, cuts, and rugburn all over his body. The night before he claimed to have a nightmare where he was trying to get away from spiders. In his sleep, he ran out of his bedroom and crashed through a glass table and bounced off a wall. Hill also had a one year stint with the Yankees in 2000!

Let us keep our fingers crossed that none of these injuries happen to any of the Yankees players this year. Want more freak injuries? Let me know!

--Missy O'Rourke
BYB Contributor
Twitter: @missy_orourke

THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF BRIAN CASHMAN

I’m now officially confused. 1 week ago, Brian Cashman made a joke about the Free Agent market and it not looking too good... OR, as he put it “It’s kind of like a baby pool. Kids pee in it.”, read HERE.  I understood what he was saying and what he was doing… he was being provocative as to say to the media, “Look, I don’t see a player that we could use, and so, we’re not going there.” OK… fine.

I’ve stated that life goes on in Yankeeland.  We have what we have and we just need to deal with it.  Try out a few guys at first, Juan Rivera, maybe Dan Johnson, move Kevin Youkilis over there, put Ronnier Mustelier at 3^rd. Basically, we do what we need to do and try to figure it all out.  It happens all the time with injuries with teams.  Then something weird happened.   Brian Cashman became nutty…and I say that in the most affectionate way possible.

These reports about Derrek Lee or Chipper Jones, or Scott Rolen are just mind boggling to me, read DERREK LEE, CHIPPER JONES OR FRED MCGRIFF? for that context.  I mean, it’s like Cashman doesn’t know what he wants to do either. I mean, am I right?  Is it possible that Brian Cashman would actually skip over the Free Agents left over, like Carlos Lee and Aubrey Huff and go straight to retired players and try to convince them to come out of retirement?  Derrek Lee? Chipper Jones? Hey, is Tony Clark available?

(In Photo: Glenallen Hill)
Hey, maybe we sign Glenallen Hill, throw him in the outfield and move Juan Rivera to first.  Jose Canseco is willing to play on the company softball team, maybe he’s available. The whole thing seems ridiculous.

My friend Mike said to me on Twitter this morning “What are the Yankees doing?”  The short answer is… I don’t know. The long answer is they are trying to get their bearings, moving things around, moving money around, saving when they can and most of all, going for the cheap alternative that can hopefully make a big splash quick and then, when their time is up, we send them home.  Sure, none of it makes sense to us, we’re Yankee fans. Many of us grew up with George and we got whatever the hell we wanted.  We’re spoiled, face it.  The hardest thing for us to do is understand this latest stunt by Cashman, and so, we don’t understand it and we become frustrated.

“Off with his head!”, some have screamed or written on Twitter of Brian Cashman.  Some suggest the broken ankle was karma for a crappy off-season.  I say this… let this whole thing play out.  I am pissed just like the rest of you. I don’t get it. But something is actually happening in the process…. The kids are playing and we’re seeing dudes like Zoilo Almonte and Ronnier Mustelier and Melky Mesa make a nice run this spring.  Ultimately, we’re going to see these guys at some point this season, maybe at the start, or later. Ultimately that's what we want anyway right?  So yeah, say we DO sign Derrek Lee temporarily and then Tex comes back.  No doubt we’ll have an injury down the road again from someone else and maybe we'll see Melky Mesa in July.  Then, maybe we make a trade for another veteran, and soon, maybe we bring up Ronnier Mustelier by August.  All I’m saying is, mixing up alittle veteran help with the kids may make for a brilliant formula… a formula for a championship team.

I often think about that 1996 team. A bunch of talent, mixed in with some veterans, some kids, and we won the whole damn thing!  Don’t forget, no one thought we had a chance under “Clueless Joe”, but we did it.  We did it with a guys named Charlie Hayes, and Mariano Duncan.  Old man Cecil Fielder was there and who could forget Luis Sojo.  The point is, we didn’t think those guys could do much either… but we did win it that year!

All I'm saying is, this is the mysterious world of Brian Cashman... but don’t panic yet Yankeeland.  It’s March 12^th, not September 12^th… we’re almost up to Opening Day.  Cash is just getting his team in order.  Let’s wait and see what we have before we get all nutty. Have faith. I know it's hard, but have faith.

Please comment, we have DISQUS, it's easier than ever. Let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.

WHY WE NEVER GIVE UP ON OUR YANKEES

(photo: NY Daily News)
There are plenty of things that happen around Opening Day. Raw fan emotion for 1. For 2, raw player emotion, yes, it's just a job to them, but they still want to win.

For the fan watching, we anaylze very simply. We look at the at bats for instance. In 4 or 5 plate appearances, us Yankee fans get a batch report of what a player may or may not do that season. Yes, it's a small batch, but put simply, this is where fans gauge players. It's not fair, but that's how our minds work.

The reality is, anything can happen after Opening Day, but comfort level of an individual player is tested and the fan knows that. Butterflies are in everyone's stomach on Opening Day, and as days move on into weeks, comfort becomes dominant in a player's psyche. That confidence at the plate usually will translate to the fan, hence, jersey's are purchased, kids formulate who their favorite player is, females want to marry that player.

Sometimes as the season progresses, certain players can't get that confidence. The mind doesn't sync up with the body, they're slow at the plate, they're booed at the plate. Fans leave, and no one's asking for autographs anymore. Bottom line, you see that happening a mile away, the player knows too, but sometimes you have to just chalk it up as a slump.

One thing I've noticed as a Yankee fan though, We never give up on our guys, EVER. Yes, we get hasty, we want the big hit, but we never ever desert our players. We love our Yankees. I've seen crappy players come and go but whenever they come back, Opening Day or Old Timer's Day, there's alwayshuge applause.Look, I rooted for the Yanks when Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra were the left side of the infield. Those were dark days. But no one faults a bad Yankee player. They may be bad sometimes, but he was qualified to wear the pinstripes, so over time, he's embraced. We, the fans love our Yankees and if you wear the pinstripes and get out there and do all you can do, we salute them... Why? Because Yankees keep fighting, no matter what.I joked about how bad Sergio Mitre was for us. Well, he was, but he gave it his all, it just turned out, he wasn't terribly good, but he never gave up. Remember Kevin Maas? He was crushing homeruns early on in his career, then, once teams figured out he couldn't hit anything but fastballs, he eventually vanished, but he never gave up. And still, to this day everyone remembers Maas, and if he showed up at Yankee Stadium, people would love to see him.

How about Glennallen Hill, or Jack Clark... maybe Matt Nokes. All these guys were Yankees, all had flashes of greatness for the Yanks, but none of them panned out the way we wanted, yet, Yankee fans know those players, and we love our Yankees. Why? Because they never gave up.
There's something that happens to players when they put on the pinstripes. They become super heroes to us all. They are leaders, they walk with pride, they never stop fighting. That's what I grew up watching. Today, nothing's changed, except of course the athletes themselves. At the end of the day, It's the unique history and a unique pattern. Yes, it's great to win every year, but year after year we remember every player good or bad who ran out on the field as a New York Yankee. Because when you wear the pinstripes, you never give up and the fans never give up on you.

Please comment and let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.