John Daly has always been the outrageous character in golf. He has in essence been the rebel, conforming to few, if any, golfing stereotypes. All that changed on Thursday when Daly suffered an injury only a golfer can sustain.

Fortunately this injury wasn’t caused by hitting a golf ball off a Diet Coke can. The down side is, it was caused by a simple camera. A spectator took a picture of Daly mid-backswing, and Daly decided to pull off his swing. Somehow stopping his swing lead to a pulled muscle. I know he swings hard, and I know he has a long swing, but a pulled muscle? Come oh John, you’ve been doing this for a long long time, and you can’t pull out of a swing?

I don’t understand how someone could be so affected by something so little either. The shutter of a camera shouldn’t be enough to disturb a swing. Just look at the majority of golf courses, you have people yelling and noise constantly, how does one camera shutter ruin everything? Ever heard of concentration? This is one of those things in sports that I’ll just never understand and unfortunately it has taken a casualty, the great John Daly.

There’s a show that runs on MTV called Scars, in which skate boarders and bikers show their horrific injuries on tape and talk about what happened. I could have sworn that show converted over to ESPN this weekend, with two horrific injuries to Wisconsin center Brian Butch and LA Clippers point guard Shawn Livingston.

I was actually watching the Wisconsin game when Butch’s injury happened and, to be completely honest, it made me sick to my stomach. The cameras didn’t catch what had happened initially, but upon further replay, viewers watched as Butch fell awkwardly while trying to grab a rebound and landed on his elbow, dislocating it. The cameras continued to stay on Butch as he sat on the bench, screaming in pain, while the team physician tried to pop his bone back into place. CBS wouldn’t say it was a dislocated elbow, but lets face it, a bone doesn’t bend like that and the muscles in his arm shouldn’t be twitching like they were. Read the rest of this entry »

At least he isn’t Jeff Kent. Ken Griffey Jr. finally announced the reason behind his broken hand suffered in December. On a family vacation in the Bahamas, Griffey was wrestling with his kids on the family yacht, which I’d imagine is small and outdated. Griffey’s son came from behind him and knocked him over, with pops falling awkwardly on his hand.

“It was nothing that could violate my contract,” he said Friday after reporting early for training camp. “It was Dad being Dad.”

Dad’s usually don’t end up in casts after playing with their kids, but it seems Griffey is a pretty fragile guy. At least he didn’t pull a hamstring on the way down.

“He got me on an angle and there I went,” he said. “He got me low and lifted.”

Trey Griffey sounds like a pretty strong dude to be able to lift and knock over his 220 pound dad. Maybe the kid is still dissappointed that his dad was traded for Mike Cameron and Freddy Garcia years ago, so he’s taking it upon himself to make sure his dad is never healthy, leaving more time for the two to bond over pizza and video games.

If Griffey can maintain some good health (position change?), the Reds could be a team to watch this year. They were pretty solid last year and stayed in the Wild Card race all season. With the resigning of Aaron Harang, the Reds have a pretty good one-two punch with him and Bronson Arroyo.

It just seems like Kerry Wood can’t win. He manages to injure himself in every possible way. This time, he hurt himself without even pitching. Wood slipped coming out a hot tub, and managed to fall face first, injuring himself. This news probably prompted a reaction that has become common for Cubs fans, despair.

While this injury is going to keep Wood out for about a week or so, I have to think it raises concerns. Can this guy be trusted to do anything? If he can’t manage to get out of a hot tub without hurting himself, how is he possibly going to be able to pitch this year and stay healthy? He isn’t. He’ll probably be visiting his summer home, the disabled list, within the first few weeks of the season.

It really is a damn shame to have seen his career go up in smoke like this. The guy had all sorts of talent, but talent means nothing if you can’t stay healthy. It just sucked when he couldn’t stay healthy before, but now it’s closing in on the line of pure comedy. If he keeps doing stupid crap like this to get hurt, he’ll stop getting sympathy from me.