Under The Knife 6/23/23
Field of Dreams
I picked this up earlier this week …
Yes, it’s a bottle of bourbon made from the corn we all saw at the Field of Dreams. Led by former pitcher Drew Storen, the new company that created this is made up of other former players and with their first bottling, they limited it to 22,860 units, the number of MLB players that had played at the time they set it.
It’s a cool concept and a cool looking bottle there on my bar. It sips pretty well too, a sweet but not oversweet bourbon with cherry notes that would do well in an Old Fashioned. My guess is a lot of these bottles will stay sealed in wax and because of their small footprint, will be on the auction sites soon. I’m hopeful they continue to make more of these, since it’s not Dyersville without corn.
So a toast to Storen and his partners, then on to the injuries:
GIO URSHELA, IF LAA (fractured pelvis)
Ignore the title of this YouTube video, because Gio Urshela didn’t tear his ACL. He broke his pelvis and is out for the season. Here’s the video and what I want you to watch for is the second step with his left leg after he passes the bag.
He’s bent over at the waist and he kind of pops up on that step, as if the head of his femur is being driven in to the pelvis. With the diagnosis of a fracture, that reminds me a lot of Bo Jackson. Let’s look at that:
Dr. Sutterer does a nice job of explaining, but the simple answer is that “pop” at the end, where Jackson is stretching and his femur is forced up broke the head of the femur and the tissue went necrotic. Essentially, it died and started to rot, necessitating the hip replacement. Given the state of medical technology at the time, it’s a wonder Jackson came back at all and tells you what an athlete he was. (He was. I saw him in high school at McAdory and it was insanity.)
The difference here is that Jackson’s femoral head was what gave and it appears that Urshela’s pelvis is what gave in his injury. While there’s certainly some concern about the acetabular labrum, the reports of “no surgery” indicate that it should heal and that the labrum as yet isn’t an issue. The key is where the fracture is, something the Angels didn’t share, and that it heals well. That’s going to take more time than we have season, but Urshela should heal up and have a good chance to come back next year, though he’ll be a free agent.
With Anthony Rendon on the IL, the hot corner goes to Luis Rengifo, who’s hitting 209. Dropping the talent level the Angels can put on the field couldn’t happen at a worse time for them, in terms of the playoff chase and the hopes of keeping Shohei Ohtani. With nothing but Jake Lamb and Preston Palmeiro at Salt Lake, there’s some tough decisions to be made in Anaheim.
JOSE URQUIDY, SP HOU (strained shoulder)