Madritsch out for the year… maybe
I get asked how Madritsch is doing a lot. I don’t know any more than you might from reading the papers, and lately that’s been kind of grim.
Corey Brock in the TNT says Madritsch is a week into a four week stretch where he’s not throwing, which would be a little off his timeline, they’re going to look at him again and–
Once that happens, Pedegana will examine Madritsch again and make a recommendation. Chances are he could miss half the season.
In the same paper, though, Larry LaRue writes this
The Mariners are loathe to say it, but they believe Bobby Madritsch will miss the rest of the season with his shoulder injury – meaning Madritsch, Travis Blackley and Bucky Jacobsen are unlikely to wear Seattle uniforms this year.
(Side note: as much as I’m really trying not to pull examples of local sportswriters being wrong, LaRue also writes
Whatever it was that happened in the right-field corner of Fenway Park last week between a fan and outfielder Gary Sheffield, know this – it wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.
That, of course, was long before fans and players became adversaries. Before fans jumped first-base coaches, before players went into the stands to retrieve stolen caps or – like last September – threw chairs at fans for taunting them in a bullpen.
Players and fans have often and long been adversaries. To pretend otherwise is to willfully ignore a long history of such confrontations. I was disappointed to read this.)
The Seattle Times earlier this week had two relevent quotes:
Dr. Larry Pedegana, the Mariners’ medical director, advised a total shutdown of any activity after the saline solution for an enhanced MRI leaked through the tear, indicating a serious situation.
and
He knows he will miss at least half this season, if not more.
So instead of “three weeks” the consensus on the street seems to be at least half the season, and it’s likely it’ll be the whole year. That would really suck.
Comments
29 Responses to “Madritsch out for the year… maybe”
Not to pick on LaRue even more, and not to revitalize USS Spelling and Grammar, but … okay, actually, I’m gonna do both things.
It’s incorrect to say the Mariners “are loathe” to say something. “To loathe” is a verb. It’s easily confused with “loath,” an adjective commonly used as part of the phrase “am/are loath.” You either “loathe” to say something or “are loath” to say something.
For example, sportswriters loathe it when you nitpick usage, so I am loath to do so.
I knew of Blackley, and I suspected the same would happen to Mads, but when did Bucky become doubtful for the whole year? Is this new, or have I been out of the loop? I hope that this is not true. The M’s could use a big righty bat.
So, wait. What? Bucky? What?
Yeah, what it this about Bucky? Thats the one that sent me gasping for air.
But in the good-news department, Jeff Harris is back in the Mariner organization and pitching for San Antonio.
I’d really like to know where this Bucky news is coming from. LaRue is pretty trustworthy. I don’t think he’d throw something like that out there without any basis.
If I read Derek correctly, re Bucky he was pointing out that Larue isn’t always accurate.
Didn’t Ty Cobb beat up a fan (who didn’t have arms) say 80 years ago? Or is that urban legend? Didn’t Dave Parker get hit with a car battery 25 years ago (my details may be off here).
If I were to start listing incidents of player-fan violence, I’d be here for ages.
I didn’t mean to imply LaRue’s not always accurate, but that he blew it on that instance.
I’m also curious what’s up with Bucky. So far this year the problem isn’t our pitching it’s out offense. We just can’t hit. We need Bucky!
Two things:
1) What do you think the likelihood is that the M’s might give up on Madritsch entirely if he’s out for the whole season? I know it’s all speculation at this point, but I find the thought totally horrifying, and you could see it all over his face when it happened, feeling like that could really be it for him. I guess what I’m hoping is that you’ll tell me that he was good enough last year that they think he’s worth the continued investment. I hope to hell it’s true.
2) Nice restraint on the comments about the player-fan relationship. That kind of golden age-ism nonsense drives me so crazy that I generally have trouble staying rational. It always manages to seem racist to me, though in this case that probably has nothing to do with it at all, considering that if anything black players seem to be dwindling in MLB. But it seems to kind of come from the same place. The good old days, when things were simple, and folks got along. And everybody in my town was white and segregation was still legal in the South. This may have lost any coherence but I maintain there’s a thread in common between the two lines of thinking, though maybe I’m still just stuck on the Pacers brawl. I’m certainly not calling LaRue a racist or anything; I’ve just seen those two attitudes overlap so much.
I just hope they don’t wait all year and then operate on Madritsch in the fall, costing him 2006 as well.
Pejorism — the belief that everything was better when one was young, or in the past — is a basic human trait. It permeates all levels of culture, and all periods of history. There is no time or subject where you can’t find writers going on about how everything is going to hell in a handbasket and has fallen from some higher ideal. The best one can do is resist them impulse in one’s own thinking and writing.
Jeff – while I agree with your grammatical objection, Webster (that everpopular American dictionary) does offer loathe as an alternate spelling of loath.
Main Entry: loath
Pronunciation: ‘lOth, ‘lO[th]
Variant(s): also loathe /’lO[th], ‘lOth/
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English loth loathsome, from Old English lAth; akin to Old High German leid loathsome, Old Irish lius loathing
: unwilling to do something contrary to one’s ways of thinking : RELUCTANT
synonym see DISINCLINED
Now, I happen to think Webster is a pretty crappy dictionary. Luckily, I have an unabridged OED handy, in which the only variant spelling offered for loath is loth, and loathe is an entirely different word, as you’ve explained.
So, if LaRue editors are Webster fans, that would explain the misuse. But it’s still wrong.
“Webster” can be used by anyone. Which Webster’s Dictionary are you talking about?
I believe the Webster that follows, more or less, historically from the original is the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The Merriam-Webster New Collegiate dictionary, in its tenth or eleventh edition, is the U.S. publishing industry standard. It’s an excellent dictionary, and is generous with usage notes, but many people disapprove of it since it is more of a descriptive dictionary than a prescriptive one, and is more interested in presenting the history of use of a disputed word than accepting the (often misguided though widely believed) assertions of word authorities over the years.
Mmm.. Merriam-Webster’s 10th Collegiate… I have two, one on my desk at work, one on my desk at home. I give it my full endorsement. Along with the Chicago Manual of Style 15th (which is delicious), Garner’s Modern American Usage… I’ll stop now.
Print journalists like LaRue (and myself, and, at one time, Jeff Shaw and his lovely wife) are typically told to use Webster’s Fourth Edition as the default dictionary authority, and of course, the Associated Press Stylebook (Chicago is more for trade publications, magazines, etc., as I understand it). But I do find Chicago to be a good argument-arbiter at times.
From the Mariner Mailbag, regarding Bucky (scroll all the way to the bottom), posted today:
QUESTION:
Also, when is Bucky Jacobsen expected to get off the DL? Do you see him possibly hitting DH because he had a pretty good stint last year?
— Sam E., Tacoma, Wash.
ANSWER:
(none given)
Oh man, if you want to get into my stylebook collection… heh.
As I said before, I pulled my Achilles tendon while training for my first marathon in May 2002. The doctor told me I had pulled it, not torn it. “If you had torn it, I wouldn’t be able to move your foot like this,” she said. If I had torn it, it would have been much more serious and I would have been out a long time with rehab.
The MRI tells us that Madritsch has torn something in his shoulder, not just pulled it. He probably can’t do certain shoulder movements, certainly not pitching movements. So, based upon what happened with my Achilles, he’s done for this season. Finished. Finito. It’s time to fire up the Tacoma Shuttle.
They make great bedside reading, don’t they, DMZ?
Reminds me of the movie “Kicking And Screaming,” where Eric Stoltz sits down with a dictionary and reads it from page to page, chuckling knowingly from time to time ….
And Wabbles (who I also know to be a fellow journalist, since I worked with him as well … I wouldn’t be shocked if one of the regulars here turned out to be Bob Finnigan) … I see your point, but I’m not sure you can draw a direct causal link between an Achilles’ heel and a shoulder. There’s different stresses, pressures, weights, torgues, angles, etc. involved. Nonetheless, I agree with your upshot: It ain’t good, and it ain’t fixing itself anytime soon.
#20–Jim Thomsen said:”I wouldn’t be shocked if one of the regulars here turned out to be Bob Finnigan)”
hmmmmmmm, the only person who regularly posts replies without caps and interesting spelling is jc….
I was referring to Merriam-Webster.
And I’m a total OED fanboy. I even sent M-W a complaint when they claimed their unabridged dictionary and the “most comprehensive English dictionary available online”, when clearly its comprehensiveness pales in comparison to the vastly superior OED Online.
M-W Online is easier to use, and much cheaper. But it contains far fewer words, and gives less historical background on meaning and etymology than the OED, and I told them so.
They didn’t dispute my claims, but insisted they were more comprehensive. I don’t think they know what comprehensive means.
RE 20: Thanks Jim. Yeah, my basic point was that tearing something, whatever is, is much more serious than pulling it.
Now, what the %^&@#!!@ is up with Bucky? He was supposed to be back for April, that’s why he got the surgery in September last year instead of after the season.
I don’t know why, but I feel the need for information on Bucky. It seems when he’s around everyone is a better hitter.
What in the hell does LaRue know that the rest of us don’t?
Yes. Gotta have the Bucky news.
Back in spring training, Bucky admitted that his knee doc had told him that because of the plugs they had to put into the divots in his knee cartilage (it was found to be a worse injury once his knee was open) that his rehab would take 8 months after the surgery, and that he had been deceiving himself that he’d be ready by spring training. He’s supposed to be ready (maybe) by the end of May, and perhaps what Larue is saying is that by the time he is ready, he may be a Rainier the rest of the season…. or he’s heard something from Peoria that know one else has.
Jim, I can’t believe anyone else has seen that movie. I love it!
Also, can someone make with some Bucky news?
From what I’ve heard from Bucky’s agent, the latest is this:
Bucky’s in Arizona working out. He’s eligible to come off the DL on June 1st. Rehab assignment should be set in late May.
Speculation:
I wonder if LaRue’s comment is in relation to a roster spot, but given Blackley’s and Mad’s situations that seems doubtful.
I’ll e-mail Joe and see what’s up.
As an edit, my information was good as of April 15.