Playing through the pain

The start of every baseball season brings new hope, nostalgia, and a plethora of injury reports. This season's no different; we're not even through the first week and we've already seen several key players go down for various injuries. Pedro Martinez (no surprise there) has a problem with his hamstring. Gary Sheffield has a torn tendon in his right ring finger; though he will remain off the DL, he'll be in a splint for about six weeks. Braves' pitcher Mike Hampton managed to mess up his left pectoral muscle while warming up.  And, before he even reported to spring training, perennial disabled-list resident A.J. Burnett somehow managed to catch his right index finger in a car door and tear his nail.  In his defense, this particular can be a real problem for a pitcher, as it cases problems gripping the ball.  He started throwing his curve in March, but we'll have to wait and see whether or not this will cause problems.  

It's tempting to use the way players deal with injuries as a quick way of judging their commitment to the team. The willingness of players to “play through the pain" is easily seen as a signifier of an athlete’s moral fiber, commitment to the concept of team before self, and, for male athletes, a symbol of “manliness.” In the 1990s movie The Program James Caan as a college football coach, puts it bluntly to a young player who has just been tackled and is now lying on the ground:

Coach: (standing over player) Are you hurt or injured?
Player: (gasping)What’s the difference?
Coach: Well, if you’re hurt, you can play. If you’re injured, you can’t.
Player: I guess I’m hurt.
Coach: Okay. Then get up.

Certainly The Program is filled with every possible sports cliché that could be crammed into 112 minutes of film. But last year we heard almost the exact same thing from Toronto Blue Jays general manager J.P. Riccardi, who said of A.J. Burnett in a radio interview that at some point Burnett would have to “just maybe pitch through some pain or realize the difference between being hurt and really being hurt.” Granted at the time Riccardi was annoyed and frustrated at yet another DL-stint for Burnett. But the language is telling. Suck it up and deal with the pain.

Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, was well known for refusing to tolerate complaining or even treatment of his players’ “little hurts.” Lombardi himself, however, didn’t follow his own advice. In his book When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, David Maraniss pointed out that Lombardi would always see his trainers for things like hangnails, upset stomach, or headaches – precisely what he would not tolerate in his players. Maraniss argues that a “characteristic of leaders” is an effort to “confront their own weaknesses indirectly, by working to eliminate them in others” (221). Lombardi’s Packers, of course, would go on to win three straight NFL championships as well as the first two Super Bowls, so perhaps he had something there.

Maraniss’ point about “confronting…weaknesses indirectly” clearly applies to fans as well. As sports fans, we project onto athletes what we want to see in ourselves. We know that we’re expected to stay in shape and deal with both the mental and physical “little hurts” of life. This might help to explain how fans can dial a talk-radio show and savage a player who shows up to spring training a few pounds overweight, and then dial the pizza joint for a double-sausage and pepperoni pie. We can simultaneously be addicted as a nation to caffeine and over-the-counter painkillers, and get angry at the athlete who sets a "bad example" through his or her use of higher-powered medications.  Athletes provide a convenient outlet for expressing our frustration at our own failure to measure up to standards that are, for most of us, impossible to achieve.

Athletes themselves have trouble meeting our unrealistic expectations.  When Brett Favre gets his bust in Canton, I'm pretty sure they'll mention something about his starting every game for sixteen years.  I'm not sure they'll remind us that in 1996 he spent 46 days in rehab to beat an addiction to Vicodin that developed at least in part out of his desire to keep playing. Regardless of how the steroid controversy plays out, I doubt we'll be reminded that Roger Clemens admitted to “eating Vioxx like it was Skittles.” "Playing through the pain," for some athletes, requires a level of pharmaceutical assistance that muddies the godlike image baseball projects and we expect.

I certainly can't countenance abuse of either prescription drugs or performance-enhancing drugs, whatever those may be.  But I also can't ignore my own complicity in the culture of expectations surrounding professional athletes.  Part of my brain, the part I don't like to listen to very often, expects that hurting player to suck it up, take the pills, and get their butt on the field.  Plus, I'm up to my neck in those very habits of managing "little hurts" that plague America.  If I have a headache, I take aspirin. In my world coffee is a "performance-enhancing drug."  And I've been known, after work, to put my feet up and have a beer or two.  None of these things on their own constitute a huge issue, but added up they tell me I have to temper my criticism of the professional athlete who steps out on the field in order, essentially, to entertain me.

So I try neither to be too impressed by Sheffield’s willingness to play through the pain of his finger, nor too mad at yet another suspect injury in A.J. Burnett’s relatively short career. The Boys of Summer get injured both through their athletic endeavors and through idiotic accidents like slamming their finger in a car door. So do we. Here's hoping they can make it through the season without too much pain and through their eventual retirements without too many problems.