Friday, September 25, 2009

Nobody Touch Derrek Lee Anymore

The Cubs year has gotten to the point where they have managed to injure themselves twice while celebrating wins against teams they shouldn't be that excited about beating.

Seriously, the homerun by Jeff Baker with two outs and two strikes was a great individual moment for him and solidly wrapped up his Best Hendry Acquisition of the Year Award (second place was a really good pizza Hendry had delivered to his house in May), but all it did was extend the Cardinals' wait to clinch the division one more day.

The Miracle Watch didn't even climb over .1% with the victory.  They beat a Beach Boy whose hair style looks more appropriate in the Cardinals' stands than on a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.  They managed to not let .176-hitting Jon Bowker single-handedly beat them with his two RBIs.  These are not accomplishments that one would think would cause such jubilation that injures a player.

But, shut-down-for-the-year Angel Guzman managed to do just that when he slapped Lee on the head after he scored on the homerun by Baker.  I thought it was bad enough when Lee came out of the game and I assumed that Lee hurt himself earlier in the inning while sliding into second on his first stolen base attempt of the year.  Lee has hurt his neck a couple of times on slides, and on this one he had a second baseman land on his head, so I figured that did it.

But, according to the story by Bruce Levine on ESPN, the injury was actually caused by a celebratory head slap from Guzman.  This vaults Lee ahead of Dempster in the Most Ridiculous Injury of the Year Award.  This is an upset on par with Marisa Tomei winning the Oscar ahead of Vanessa Redgrave in 1993.

So the Cubs lose Ryan Dempster for a month because he can't jump a fence, and potentially lose Lee because his neck can't handle a smack from a relief pitcher.  How come no one injures Aaron Miles during a celebration?

2 comments:

Charley said...

Guzman should have done the traditional butt slap. But then again, you don't want to injure someone's hamstring that way.

Aisle 424 said...

With their frailty, I think anything more than a golf clap runs a serious risk. Perhaps, just a rousing chorus of "Jolly Good Fellow" would be the best thing to do to congratulate a team mate.

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