Toughguy Warriors of the Sports World

[Newsman]

Sports are hell for today's athletes
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Give Kevin Garnett a break. His apology for compar ing an NBA playoff game to war was quick and sincere.

"I'm loading up the Uzis," the NBA's Most Valuable Player had said. "I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war."

Cut Browns top draft pick Kellen Winslow Jr. some slack, too, for his "I'm a soldier" rant last season after Miami of Florida lost to Tennessee.

It became even more obvious this week why athletes so often confuse the games they play with military campaigns. We're not in the locker room. They are. And all around them, they see injured friends.

One minute Sammy Sosa is upright, talking about the job at hand. The next, he's doubled over in pain.

Ran into a wall? No. Got in a brawl? Not exactly.

He did it sneezing. Laugh if you want. But it wasn't just one sneeze. He sneezed twice, sending his lower back into complete spasms.

Every clubhouse knows these grisly stories. Carrying those images around every day can't be easy.

Garnett only has to look to teammate Latrell Sprewell to be reminded the basketball-as-war references need not be so general. Sometimes, basketball is naval warfare.

While playing for the New York Knicks, Sprewell hurt his hand. Aboard his new yacht.

Tony Gwynn, the great left-handed hitter who toiled in the Navy town of San Diego all those years, fractured his finger slamming it in the door of a Bradley assault . . . hold on, the medical report says he slammed it in the door of his Porsche?

Before Jacksonville punter Chris Hanson sliced his leg open wielding an ax as part of a symbolic "chopping wood" exercise in the locker room, he was a burn victim.

In June 2001, a fondue pot overturned on him at home.

Yachts. Porsches. Fondue pots.

Not only must this be a different kind of war they're fighting, the mess hall is unlike any in Iraq.

Suffering burns is one of the hazards of the profession. Atlanta's John Smoltz's wound was self-inflicted. He burned himself while ironing a shirt.

He was wearing the shirt at the time.

Tom Glavine, Smoltz's old teammate, broke a rib at 28,000 feet. A mountainous ascent was not involved. Nor is there a story to tell about a special-ops paratrooper raid.

He broke the rib while violently throwing up into an air sickness bag.

Not every athlete rides high. Some are foot soldiers.

Boston Red Sox star Wade Boggs hurt his back while pulling on his cowboy boots. An infielder named Randy Johnson, who played for the Braves at the time, missed six weeks after spraining his thumb pulling on his sanitary socks.

Glenallen Hill, who played outfield for the Tribe, told of going to sleep one night and dreaming of spiders. Spiders are his phobia. Unwittingly, he lunged through a glass table, suffered cuts to his hands and feet and wound up on the disabled list.

Hill and all the rest return to do battle, get right back in the trenches, face do-or-die circumstances.

If you still can't see where Garnett was coming from, then you need to hear the story of the Los Angeles Clippers' Corey Maggette. He missed a game with a foot infection.

And you thought pedicures were for pampered athletes.

[Steadfast]

Those Sports guys got it rough. The game of Sports is hell, all except going to the bank. I remember last year we were figuring out how much A-Rod was getting paid. It was more than $163,000 an inning. Sports figures aren't alone in getting those accidents. I remember a fireman in my pub who while using a electric saw went and cut of the end of his own finger. It neva healed correctly and he had to resign. You need all 10 fingers to keep your job.

Life will be tough for one of those great sports figures as one is now on trail for murder for shooting his driver. He tried a cover - up. And now he's worried about going to jail for a number of years. Why he kept a loaded weapon is beyond me. And not handling it correctly sent an innocent man to the grave. I bet he ain't alone this basketball player. As I am sure other' Sport Figure's have fired their weapons accidently in their homes but without the deadly consequences. You can cover up a bullet hold in the wall but not in a human body!

[Looon]

Sports are hell for today's athletes
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Give Kevin Garnett a break. His apology for compar ing an NBA playoff game to war was quick and sincere.

"I'm loading up the Uzis," the NBA's Most Valuable Player had said. "I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war."

Cut Browns top draft pick Kellen Winslow Jr. some slack, too, for his "I'm a soldier" rant last season after Miami of Florida lost to Tennessee.

It became even more obvious this week why athletes so often confuse the games they play with military campaigns. We're not in the locker room. They are. And all around them, they see injured friends.

One minute Sammy Sosa is upright, talking about the job at hand. The next, he's doubled over in pain.

Ran into a wall? No. Got in a brawl? Not exactly.

He did it sneezing. Laugh if you want. But it wasn't just one sneeze. He sneezed twice, sending his lower back into complete spasms.

Every clubhouse knows these grisly stories. Carrying those images around every day can't be easy.

Garnett only has to look to teammate Latrell Sprewell to be reminded the basketball-as-war references need not be so general. Sometimes, basketball is naval warfare.

While playing for the New York Knicks, Sprewell hurt his hand. Aboard his new yacht.

Tony Gwynn, the great left-handed hitter who toiled in the Navy town of San Diego all those years, fractured his finger slamming it in the door of a Bradley assault . . . hold on, the medical report says he slammed it in the door of his Porsche?

Before Jacksonville punter Chris Hanson sliced his leg open wielding an ax as part of a symbolic "chopping wood" exercise in the locker room, he was a burn victim.

In June 2001, a fondue pot overturned on him at home.

Yachts. Porsches. Fondue pots.

Not only must this be a different kind of war they're fighting, the mess hall is unlike any in Iraq.

Suffering burns is one of the hazards of the profession. Atlanta's John Smoltz's wound was self-inflicted. He burned himself while ironing a shirt.

He was wearing the shirt at the time.

Tom Glavine, Smoltz's old teammate, broke a rib at 28,000 feet. A mountainous ascent was not involved. Nor is there a story to tell about a special-ops paratrooper raid.

He broke the rib while violently throwing up into an air sickness bag.

Not every athlete rides high. Some are foot soldiers.

Boston Red Sox star Wade Boggs hurt his back while pulling on his cowboy boots. An infielder named Randy Johnson, who played for the Braves at the time, missed six weeks after spraining his thumb pulling on his sanitary socks.

Glenallen Hill, who played outfield for the Tribe, told of going to sleep one night and dreaming of spiders. Spiders are his phobia. Unwittingly, he lunged through a glass table, suffered cuts to his hands and feet and wound up on the disabled list.

Hill and all the rest return to do battle, get right back in the trenches, face do-or-die circumstances.

If you still can't see where Garnett was coming from, then you need to hear the story of the Los Angeles Clippers' Corey Maggette. He missed a game with a foot infection.

And you thought pedicures were for pampered athletes.