Well, he hasn't taken one pitch in a spring game, beset with headaches and queasiness, and it's a done deal that "Red Thunder" will start 2018 on the DL and work himself back to health in Scranton, if not Tampa or Trenton. Who knows how long he'll be out? There is no timetable for something as serious as a head injury.
One reason for such diligence is that ball clubs have learned to respect the concussion's impact on your ability to throw or hit a 95-mile-per-hour baseball. Last year, after crashing into a wall, Jacoby Ellsbury spent more than a month in recovery and then suffered a brutal, six-week batting slump, which effectively destroyed his season. The Yankees don't need an outfielder who cannot hit, so they will wait on Frazier. Frankly, they have no choice.
Which brings us to the NFL, the last, great bastion of professional sports where human heads are used as cannon fodder...
Remember the AFC championship game in January, when Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski suffered a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision with a DB, and could barely make it to the correct sideline? He never returned in the game, though it wasn't until the second half when the Patriots made the decision formal.
Then, two weeks later in the Super Bowl, there was Gronk, crushing skulls all over again. Obviously, his brain was still healing. And I get it: This was the Super Bowl. But at what point does the NFL finally put the health of its players over the outcome of a game? Well, I guess we know the answer... never.
As a Giants fan, I can tell you that watching a season of the NFL is to see a steady succession of dazed players, who stagger off with a head injury and return two weeks later, presumably after following Dr. Wilson's advice. Drink a keg of water and get back out there. They're like Timex watches in the old John Cameron Swaze commercials: They take a licking and keep on ticking. I wonder how many head injuries Gronk has endured? My guess is that not even Gronk knows. So Gronk goes out and uses his head like a bowling ball... Gronk, Gronk, Gronk...
And ten years from now, what then? Will he be a loving, happy dad? Or will he be living under a bridge? We can no longer dismiss the threat to NFL players by romanticizing their danger on "the gridiron." The more we see the lasting effect of head injuries on baseball players, the more we should question the brutality of pro football's ridiculous concussion protocols, rules that undermine what should be the league's top priority: the safety of its players. What a joke.
Clearly, the NFL suits see players as replaceable commodities, cannon balls to be fired at the other side, and if somebody faces a post-retirement hell of early onset dementia, fuck him. They paid him a lot of money to wreck his brain. So fuck him, and let society figure out the next move.
Surely, the Yankees' slow movement with Frazier has been hardest on Frazier, who seems like the kind of guy who'd get back in there and hit the wall again. In fact, that day in February, that's what Frazier did. Thank God somebody took a stand - (or maybe it's much easier in spring training exhibition games.)
It's now been more than 10 years since NFL concussions became a national issue. This is not a new controversy - or a ginned up debate, like standing for the National Anthem. Families are on the line. At some point, somebody is going to have to take a stand. And Clint Frazier needs to sit back, count his blessings and think about June... and the long career and happy life that he hopefully will have. I want each Yankee to someday enjoy Old-Timer's Day, with full access to his memories. I just wish it could happen in football, too. But something has to change. It's a national disgrace.
It's all about the money. Nothing too complex here. Good piece, Duque.
ReplyDeleteYes, good piece. Football's days are numbered. It is increasingly difficult to watch the games with the knowledge that people are destroying their brains for our entertainment. If lifelong, hardcore sports fans like us are having this discussion, imagine how young parents are now feeling about it. It may take a death on the field, but programs will start closing up shop from the bottom up -- youth leagues, schools and colleges.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece, Duque—and I love the use of "sparrowed" as a verb.
ReplyDeleteThe modern football helmet is as effective as the boxing glove in preserving cranium health. In all those old, 60-round, bare-knuckle matches you used to read about, boxers were very selective about hitting their opponents in the head because likely as not they'd break their hand. With the "protective" glove it was hey, go ahead, bounce that brain!
It's much the same with the helmet. Back in the day, when you were playing with just some leather circle on your noggin, you were taught to mostly tackle below the waist—or at least so said my daddy, backup defensive back for the Tenafly Tigers.
Go back to the old helmets, and guys won't be so eager to use their heads as weapons. Go back to two-way football, and to last sixty minutes, players will have to be some kind of human shape again. I predict injuries—and particularly head injuries—would drop exponentially.
The NFL thought bigger, more cushioned, helmets would fix the problem. It made it more severe -- the players felt more fearless about slamming their heads. So a hit causes less external (visible) damage, but the brain rattles around the cranium at an even higher rate of speed. A concussion is more likely to come from the recoil. So the attempt to mitigate the effects made them worse.
ReplyDeleteThe NFL has a long history of treating their players as fungible consumable parts to be used and discarded. I'm convinced that Jim Brown retiring prematurely probably saved him from permanent brain damage.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with a word of the post (or the comments). BUT.....
...isn't this how the employers (the top 1%) are regularly treating the 99%....in everyday life in the U.S.?
Have you read about the "monitoring" of workers in Amazon warehouses? -- a measure that will spread to other work.
We (the 99, the worker bees) are disposable. More now than ever before (esp. without unions to represent us, for the most part).
OK -- so you don't get a concussion working at a desk, or in a warehouse, or behind the wheel of a truck.
However, when a person loses a full-time job, an entire family can suffer.
AND: When the driving of trucks becomes totally automated -- next 7-10 years -- the people who drive trucks for a living -- hundreds of thousands of them -- will suffer.
Along this line, the equiv. of a concussion is what some of us do to ourselves -- with opiods.
I am sorry to inject a serious note in here.
To finish:
If football and its owners are more like the bulk of America, and baseball is a bit less so, perhaps there is a "cultural" thing going on. Baseball is, after all, the sport that repays you if you can sustain an attention span (over 9 innings, over 162 games, etc.). Football is a game without a soul, and has been (at least since Jim Brown retired).
Excuse my opinion. I'm probably totally full of it....
Boxing still exists. Not only that, but extreme fighting is huge.
ReplyDeletePeople will, sadly, watch guys destroy their brains for the public's amusement a lot longer than any of us might like. It's been going on since forever. My guess is, it will continue forward in the same manner.
Humans are not especially bright animals in a lot of ways.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is, it will continue forward in the same manner.
I for one would pay good money to see Joe Biden and Donald Trump climb into a ring and attempt to beat the shit out of each other.
Joe is right. People...the masses...are universally treated like disposable, easily replaceable slaves.
ReplyDeleteNot as badly as some slaves, in some cases, but equally so in others ( see diamond mine workers in Africa, e.g. )
Football rationale goes like this;
1. These guys are in it for the money and the glamour.
2. They are well rewarded ( 1% level salaries and bonuses )
3. They know the risks.
4. The risks are closer to 10-15% than 90%.
5. They can get out whenever they wish.
6. Beautiful willing women follow them around.
Worker bees have no such options, even if their brains don't get scrambled by contact. Often, they get scrambled by stress and depression.
That's why there is baseball.
I agree with Joe and Alphonse on pretty much all of it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a big reason why baseball remains the game for me. It is still played by people of recognizably human dimensions, who are not physically destroying each other.
You watch, whenever they perfect robots—another 20-30 years, if we don't destroy the planet first—they'll be the football players. And the fans will still be cheering them on. Hey, they can watch heads literally come off!
Hoss,
ReplyDeleteYou just made me think about rock-em sock-em robots:
https://shop.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ms/mattel-games/rock-em-sock-em-robots-game-ccx97
"He knocked his block off!"
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's coming.
I'm with LBJ on his pay-per-view idea. Think of the world-wide haul. we'd balance the budget in one evening and have a one year tax holiday to boot!
ReplyDeleteI want a ring side seat for that celebrity death match.
ReplyDelete
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