Surgery

Leon went under the knife today at New England Baptist Hospital and the procedure was deemed "successful" by the team. He had his torn ACL and meniscus repaired in his left knee. Even though he's only 25, this is the third surgery he has had on that knee. He's worked hard before to rehabilitate but there is only so much reconstruction that the body can withstand. I continue to be bummed out by this and can only hope a team takes a chance on him this summer.

And in other sports news, there is stuff going on.

UPDATE: Apparently he also had microfracture surgery. Can't make this stuff up. That combined with the ligament repairs could mean that Leon might not be able to play until well into next season assuming everything heals correctly. Microfracture surgery isn't as serious as it once was (see Stoudamire, Amare) but I'm sure the rehab isn't a walk in the park. I've been reading some other sites saying that we shouldn't feel too bad since he's made roughly $2 million in three years. To that, I quote the great Mark Wahlberg. "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself."

Out until the playoffs...

From everything I've read today, it looks like Leon is shut down for the rest of the regular season in the hopes that he can rehab his knee and make it back for the first round of the playoffs. Details are still pretty vague as it seems like the Celtics front office have recently attended classes at the New England Patriots Injury Information Chokehold University. This obviously sucks but considering the way the top of the Eastern Conference is looking, Danny and Doc might want to consider doing the same with KG. Watching Leon put up those great numbers while Garnett was out makes this harder to take. Leon's contract is also up the end of the year so going into free agency with an injury history isn't going to help his chances on landing a sweet deal. (On boston.com's sports section right now, there is a local interview with Leon discussing his injury and the team's overall health that's over seven minutes long. I tried posting here but the media player didn't fit properly. Also the audio is pretty wack. But do check it out if you're trying to kill the last 14 minutes of your workday...)

By the way, I REALLY don't want to see the Heat play the Celtics in the first round.

The Walking Wounded

By October 20th, the New England Patriots had their starting quarterback, starting running back and starting safety all injured and out for the rest of the season. Today it is being reported that starting LB and all around ass kicker Adelius Thomas has a broken forearm and will join Brady, Maroney and Harrison on the IR. And this is in addition to Sammy Morris and Lamont Jordon missing significant time. Maybe I don't follow every team's injuries as closely as I do New England's, but it seems EVERY damn year that multiple key players miss huge chunks of the season. I know football is a grueling sport but yikes. Thanks to the emergence of "The Lawfirm" BenJarvus Jeremy Green-Ellis, the Pats still somehow have a semblance of a running game. Cassel is settling in nicely and they are tied for the division lead with a 6-3 record.

New England has a HUUUUGE game this Thursday against the Jets at Gillette. And just for S's and G's, New York has just signed old friend Ty Law and will trot him against his former team. This division is damn close but I think in a different way than people expected when Brady went down. I personally thought it was going to be a battle of mediocrity but all four teams are still very much in the running with every team have an above .500 record (see James' AFC post). One thing is for sure (besides my undying hatred for Brett Favre and the fact that Jerricho Cotchery caught 1 friggin pass in a game where his team scored 47 points), the Patriots cannot afford anymore huge injuries if they want to make the playoffs. Belichick is good, but he can only do so much with backups and backups to backups.

In an unrelated note, I wanted to quickly touch on the likely trade of Matt Holliday to the Oakland A's. He'll only be there for possibly less than one year but his huge OBP will fit right in with Billy Beane's team concept. Leaving Colorado will negatively impact his offensive stats, but not by leaps and bounds. Oakland's offense has really been terrible these past couple of seasons so it will be nice for their fans to have a legit star on the team. This is the first big move of the offseason and will only get baseball fans salivating for more deals and more signings. And does this move put more pressure on the Angels to lock up Teixeira?

This. Is. Not. Good.

When Tom Brady tore 47 ligaments in his knee during the first game of the season this year, it gravely impacted the rest of the Patriots regular season. Even with surgery and rehab, many believed he wouldn't be 100% by the time the 2009 campaign began. But hey, three Super Bowl titles in seven years? The best statistical season ever by a QB last year? Something bad was bound to happen. I mean, it's the NFL.

But not this bad.

Reports are swirling today that Tom Brady has had THREE additional surgeries to combat an infection in his surgically repaired knee. Experts are saying that if the infection doesn't improve, Brady might need an entirely new reconstructive surgery! And to make matters worse, he had the procedure done by a family recommended doctor in California, rather than a team recommended doctor in Boston. The entire franchise is at stake right now. When I wrote a post before the season started about how Brady and Peyton Manning weren't getting any younger and how injuries might be more of a factor as their respective careers progressed, I never imagined something like this.

And to all the Patriots haters out there who will say things like, "He's banging one of the hottest and richest women ever to walk the planet, screw him." or "They cheated, he's a dick." no one deserves to go out like this. Here's hoping he can somehow avoid that second surgery and don the red white and blue again next year.

Everyone just stay calm. We gotta KEEP our COMPOSURE!!

I understand that there are only 16 regular season games in the NFL and every game gets put under a microscope. And heading into Week Four (when there are already bye weeks) there are indeed a few teams that everyone can safely say their future's bright or they look worse than George Brett's pants after some bad crab legs. But overall, let's just slow things down a bit, take a step back and objectively look at the state of the league.

Okay, so there are four teams that have no business even taking the field for the rest of the year. Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland (wtf Braylon Edwards! catch a friggin pass)are seriously just embarrassing themselves and while the Bengals are also 0-3, Cincy at least showed some heart yesterday against the Giants.

Looking at most teams, it appears that there's going to be a lot of 7-9 and 8-8 teams. We can't have teams finishing 15-1 and 14-2 every year. Injuries have already ravaged a number of rosters. It kinda takes the wind of out the "excitement sails." (I don't really know what that means.) For instance, that Philly/Pittsburgh game yesterday? How insanely boring was that? Westbrook, McNabb and Roethlisberger were all knocked out of the game with only McNabb coming back. 15-6 was the final score. Was it great defense or just poor execution offensively? I don't know about you folks, but watching Byron Leftwich, Correll Buckhalter and (gasp!) Matt Cassel doesn't exactly find my lost remote. Also, back up quarterback play leads to lack of production from wide receivers. Tomlinson, Colston, the list goes on. Yeah, I realize that it's the nature of the beast in the NFL that key players get hurt every year and some miss significant time. But three games into the year? The Brady injury might have been a bit of foreshadowing in relation to the entire season.

Getting back to individual teams, Dallas has looked pretty damn good. But some of the other undefeateds haven't won me over by any means. The defending champs barely beat Washington and Cincinnati and beat up on the Rams. Wow. Denver? They put up an ass ton (actual measurement) of points but were a blown call away from being 2-1. Tennessee's competition so far has been laughable. Buffalo...hmmmm. They have proved they can win close ones and Lynch hasn't even rushed for over 100 yards in a game yet. Their defense and special teams are pretty impressive. Definitely a team to keep an eye on but I wouldn't exactly put a lot of money down on them each week. If I had any.

Yes, I'm getting to the RB23 show. What else can you say really? With Brady out, the New England defense needed to put the rest of the team on their back and power through the regular season in the hopes that Cassel would improve and give the Pats a decent shot in the playoffs. Yesterday, Bill Belichick's team flat out stunk. In every way. One would think that Brady's injury would inspire them to step up and be even more motivated than a team that barely missed out on a 19-0 season. If that's even possible. But nope, they were beaten down essentially by one dude. Granted, he looked great doing it but after the first time he lines up for a direct snap, couldn't you, I don't know, adjust. Isn't that what Belichick specializes in? Being down 21-6 at half time ain't the worst situtation to be in at your home stadium.

But again. IT'S JUST ONE GAME. The Patriots are still 2-1 and the Dolphins are still 1-2. So much can happen between now and the end of the year. More stars can and probably will miss multiple games due to injury. J.T. O'Sullivan will remember that he's J.T. O'Sullivan. The Titans will play someone with a pulse. Come talk to me after Week 8 and maybe I'll listen to some of these proclamations.

Oh and then there's the "balance of power switching" argument. I can't stand to hear this in any sport, the NFL in particular. In the finals of all the major sports, it's still one team from the East/AFC, etc. versus one team from the West/NFC, etc. And in football, they only play one game for the trophy! Any Given Sunday right? So what if the NFC East might have three (four?) teams with double digit wins. How many of them are getting to the Super Bowl? It gives the countless drones on all the tv shows to run their yap about but at the end of the day, it's meaningless. Besides, who really pays attention to football until after the World Series anyway...

Insert Boondock Saints pun here:

I realize that things have slowed down considerably here at SPLP. Today is the first day it hasn't rained in Boston since May and the baseball regular season is entering the home stretch. How many more baseball posts can I write anyway? The NFL preseason is picking up steam with dumb injuries piling up by the second. (Damn you Donteezy! Don't be messing with my boy B.E. like that.) The USA Basketball team is set to take on some tougher competition in the quest to get back the gold in Beijing. Leon is no doubt rocking some intense offseason workouts and the last of the NBA free agents are signing with news today that Andre Iguodala staying in Philly. But in light of this apparent writing malaise, I thought I'd write a bit about someone who is facing a more serious kind of fatigue. An athlete who up until a few years ago, seemed destined for greatness and appeared to be blessed with infinite talent. (Here's a hint, he's the dude in the picture.)


Rocco Baldelli was drafted by the Tampa Ray Devil Rays in the first round of the 2000 amateur draft and made his debut with the team three years later. Baldelli was a star athlete at Bishop Hendricken High School in Rhode Island. (Warwick...ewww.) He was one year older than me but I never made it over there to see him play. I was clearly doing other constructive things in high school... Anyway, people in the area who did watch him were pretty heavy on the hyperbole in their descriptions. (Of course, one of the best athletes to ever come out of the Ocean State is not saying all that much.) But his rookie of the year caliber season in 2003 sure provided some validaty to all the buildup. Baldelli played 156 games, drove in 78 runs, had 27 stolen bases and hit .289. Oh yeah, he played a mean center field too. In fact, the next season, he led all major league center fielders in range factor. That year, he also cut his strikeout total by 40 and hit five more home runs. But Tampa Bay wasn't the juggernaut that they are now and anyone outside of Rhode Island and Florida weren't paying too much attention to this rising star. And unfortunately for the 6'4, 200 pound phenom, this is where this starting going south.


During the offseason following 2004, Rocco tore his ACL and was scheduled to be out until the All Star break. But during his rehab, he managed to hurt his elbow so severely that he needed Tommy John surgery. (Fun fact: Raiders kicker Sabastion Janikowski has had tommy john surgery. What?) It is rare that a position player needs the surgery but that put him on the shelf until June of the 2006 campaign. He came back in great shape however and again put up some good numbers. In 364 at bats, Baldelli had 16 homers and hit .302. So okay, minor setback but things were definitely looking up moving forward. Until he pulled a hamstring during spring training the next year. Well, compared to a torn ACL and an elbow surgery, a pulled hammy doesn't seem to bad. Here is where things go from south to just plain weird.

He played 35 games up until May 15th but was placed on the DL again because of the hamstring. He tried to come back but aggravated it again in a minor league game. Along with the continued muscle injuries, Baldelli started to notice that he began tiring very quickly during workouts. He missed the rest of the year. By now everyone was starting to wonder what the problem was. And even after extensive testing, doctors could only say that he was suffering from a "mitochondrial disorder" where his body wasn't producing enough ATP which is what the human body uses to power cells. (Biology, you scary!) After failing to comeback during spring training of '08, the team again put Baldelli on the DL with an unknown return date and also failed to pick up the option on his contract for the following year. Now don't get me wrong, Josh Hamilton is my boy, but he nearly threw away his gifts (and life for that matter) by abusing drugs before making a storied comeback this year. But using drugs was his choice. Rocco Baldelli didn't choose to have his body fail him.

Ironically, the Rays activated Rocco this week when both Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria went on the DL. He has played in two games so far and made a great diving catch that had everyone holding their breath. While he won't be able to play back to back games for the foreseeable future, Baldelli hopes to contribute to a team that is now poised to enter the postseason for the first time in franchise history. It is unsure whether or not he'll be able to play past this year or if a team will even take a chance on him. Perhaps doctors will be able to better diagnosis him and provide some sort of treatment options. But like Bo Jackson, Baldelli will probably go down in the history books as an athlete with unlimited potential and talent whose injuries destroyed what could have been a Hall of Fame type career. And like Bo, Rocco Baldelli deserves better.

Injuries

The Celtics won Game 1 of the NBA Finals. This is good.
Perkins and Pierce are both hurt. This is not good.

Granted, the name of the blog is Start Playing Leon Powe, but I don't want his playing time to stem from one, if not two, of the starting five going down with an injury.

While everyone is talking about Pierce's knee, it is Kendrick's ankle that appears to be the more serious of the two for right now. While number 34 might get limited minutes, there's a chance that Perk might not be able to go at all. The concensus appears that PJ Brown will get the start but Leon's minutes would go up drastically. With all of the time off, I think Doc should still stick with Posey, Powe and House off the bench with Big Baby maybe getting some playing time if there's foul trouble involved. The three days rest was crucial. I would write more leading into tonight's game but it's currently 400 degrees Celsius in Boston right now. I will however, leave you with Leon's stat line from Thursday night:

9 minutes
4 points
4 rebounds (2 offensive)
1-1 FG
2-2 FT
0 turnovers