There’s more than enough injuries to fill 20 slides this week. Big injuries to big names are good for my job security but bad for the game. Missing Bryce Harper, Clay Buchholz or David Price costs teams wins and dollars, but beyond that, the lack of effort in prevention and research is problematic for the future of the game.
The old quote from Joe DiMaggio—”There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best”—holds true here. Fans do come to see Harper play like his hair is on fire or to see the smooth swing of Ryan Braun. That they’re missing games means that fans are missing out.
The doctors and athletic trainers around baseball are doing all they can, but they’re not given much support. The owners seem content to lose billions of dollars to the DL. Quick, tell me the last MLB-funded research initiative that you read about. (If you have one, please drop it in the comments because aside from the ongoing work on pitcher head protection, I can’t think of one from the last 18 months.)
There’s another old quote, probably as apocryphal as DiMaggio’s, that billionaires can look as stupid as they want because they can afford it. While true, you have to wonder how long the game can afford it. It’s time that MLB as a whole tackled this issue, making prevention a strategy and letting the findings trickle down to the millions of baseball players at lower levels.
For the injuries that have already happened, let’s get to it.