The wind outside the Culver’s curbside pickup window is biting enough to strip the paint off a 1984 Mustang, and I am staring at my Spotted Cow like it holds the secrets of the universe while waiting for our custard order. This is where we live now in Wisconsin. You wait for things that might never come, you sit through the cold so your kids can have something warm to eat later, and you pray that what you ordered actually tastes good even if the drive-thru screen froze three minutes ago.
It reminds me of the news coming out of Dunedin about José Berríos. The Toronto Blue Jays pitcher is going to see a specialist for inflammation in his right elbow and he isn’t throwing again until he gets there. This is the same guy who went 9-5 with a 4.17 ERA last season before landing on the IL at the end of it all, so you know this isn’t some new random bad luck event (name-dropping stats like I am an accountant when I just want to understand why pitchers are treated like disposable tools). He missed Puerto Rico for the World Baseball Classic because of this. Which is good for him personally but terrible for the narrative the front office wanted to paint where they are a contender ready to run it back into October (because let’s be honest, everyone thinks they can win if they just keep buying players instead of teaching them how to take care of their own bodies).
As an official with twenty years on the field I know that mechanics fail long before the tissue tears. When you watch the umpire signal a strike and you see the pitcher’s arm lag behind his hips, that is where the trouble starts. It is like trying to lay a TIG weld without cleaning the metal first. You get a pretty bead looking at it for five seconds but then the stress hits it in the field six months later and everything cracks open. Dr. Keith Meister is the guy Berríos will see on Tuesday, and I hope he knows how to fix things that have already been stressed beyond their yield point because there are no second chances when your tendons fail (and you do not want to be on the wrong side of a surgeon’s scalpel if you can avoid it).
My daughter Blake asked me last week why grown men keep putting themselves in these positions where they gamble with injuries just to make a manager look good. She was holding that stuffed bear she won at Disney last year and she wanted to know why people say play through pain when the human body is not a steel beam you can heat up again later. I told her it is because adults get confused about loyalty sometimes. They think putting their name on the line in a stadium makes them loyal to the fans, but they forget that being loyal means keeping yourself alive and healthy for your family after the game ends (which is why I would run through a brick wall for Michael-Vincent or Blake but I am not going to let my body quit on me before I see my son grow up to be taller than his mom).
The Blue Jays front office says they are doing this because it is best for Berríos in the long run, which sounds like corporate speak for we do not want him pitching if he gets hurt during a high leverage situation and ruins our playoff chances. That is the hard truth of modern sports management where players become assets on a spreadsheet rather than men who need to breathe. It is why I view the league through such a cynical lens because they treat talent like it is infinite when it clearly isn’t (and if you want to see real loyalty go watch your local Little League coach yell at his son for leaving the game with an ache and not play again that season).
I hope Berríos gets fixed up so he can come back stronger next year but I also know how these things work. You get inflammation, you take time off, you rest it, and then maybe you start throwing again. It is not a video game where you reset the save file when the graphics lag or fire the coach because your quarterback isn’t moving fast enough (Blake asked about this too yesterday). The human body does not operate on a spreadsheet or a timeline set by a general manager who wants to win now instead of thinking five years down the road.
One-Ry Out.