Richard Herr - Injuries

Injuries

It’s spring training. The players are returning to playing the game. Some guy pulls a muscle; one guy strains a tendon.

Suddenly a whole flock of Chicken Littles fly in, flapping their wings like crazy, and screaming that the sky is falling. It’s not only falling, but it already fell yesterday. However, you’ve got to be extra careful because today’s fall is going to be far worse than yesterday’s.

The Chicken Littles I’m referring to are the New York media. The minute something goes wrong, or even looks like it might go wrong, they start flapping all over the place, forecasting doom and gloom. They fly off in a frenzy of breast-beating. They rant and they holler that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, except for the fact that they will. Of course they behave in that manner because in this world of alternate facts, that’s journalism.

However, I would like to discuss their screaming and lamenting as a fan of the New York Metropolitans. You know, the team that had all those injuries last year? I want to tell those Chicken Littles to shut the F up. They’re ruining the team.

How do I come up with that? Take a look at all of those CLs (Chicken Littles. I get tired of typing things out. I want words to be there in a New York Minute.) Their eyes are open wide. Their mouths are puckered in fear. The veins stand out on their temples as they stress over the whole deplorable situation (whatever deplorable situation that happens to be). In a word they are tense. They are tense and they are making all of the fans tense by fluttering around so much.

The whole world of the New York Mets is tense.

The same New York Mets who had all of those injuries last year.

Now, it’s a well-known medical fact that when you are in a high-impact situation, like being tackled in football, the best thing for you to do is to relax to avoid injury. You’re supposed to roll with the punch. You’re supposed to relax your body when you’re landing from a fall.

Now let’s put those last two ideas together. The Mets have a whole press-induced aura of tension. If you are tense, you are more likely to become injured. So you see a scenario where if there is that thin, little, unnoticed vein of extra tension going through your body when you go to throw that 100 mph fastball, it could cause too much strain on a tendon in the elbow.

The next thing you know, you’re seeing Dr. Andrews.

What should the press and fans of the Mets do? What is the answer? It’s a very simple one: relax. Wrap yourself up on an aura of calm. Meditate. Sit around repeating the syllable ommmm.  Take yoga classes. Achieve a serenity that has 100 mph fastballs being launched by totally relaxed UCLs.

And stop blaming people like poor Ray Ramirez for things that are really your fault.

Whenever Richard Herr isn’t solving all the Mets’ problems, he spends his time writing humorous science fiction novels.

You can see his books at https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Herr/e/B00J5XBKX4.