Remember When?

Under The Knife started as an email. I sent the first UTK email to three guys, one of whom (Jim Callis, now with MLB) was just on the Vandy-Michigan game I was watching on the bus last weekend. Which was cool.

I don’t have a copy of that first email. I don’t remember who the guys were I discussed. I have seen a copy of the third email that went out and … it looks pretty much the same as every column I’ve done. It’s a list of guys, discussion and explanation, with a little colloquial intro. Stylistically, it hasn’t really evolved.

There was no dot-dot section, which has probably had more notice than anything else, even if it’s a straight rip-off of Peter Gammons’ diamond notes from back in the day. Remember when a one-liner about Mark Prior’s shoulder blew up the world? I sure do. Mark’s doing fine these days.

I don’t expect to break any ground in terms of writing style or format. Flat out, this works. I think the writing world has come back from the clickbait and SEO hell of the mid 2010’s. Headlines don’t need a thousand iterations and a call to action. Then again, I’ve learned I don’t need as many big words or flowery metaphors in the 20 years I’ve been pumping these out.

At first, I thought there was going to be a subsection of people who really cared about injuries. In essence, I thought there were more people like me. I even tried to name them. Medhead did not stick. Instead, I learned that some people care so passionately about their teams, real and fake, that they’re willing to wade through injury information to learn more.

The smart ones let the info sink in. They learned to use it to their advantage. They kept me from beating my head in when a sportscaster said “it’s not torn, it’s just sprained.”

It’s gotten better since 2002, in terms of injuries in sports, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Injuries and surgeries and missed time may not be down, but in relative and very real terms, it’s better. Career ending injuries are rare. The ones that were are less career changing than career road bumps. Rehab times are down almost universally.

There’s still a long way to go. By talking about it, by trying to increase the understanding, that gets furthered. By holding people accountable for results, we push things forward.

So yes, injuries matter. Which is why this is all starting again.