One huge difference between pro athletes and weekend warriors is health care. Ball clubs have major money invested in these players, so it is only practical they get the best care available.
On the other side of the coin, I’m still hobbled from a calf injury sustained a month ago, but I don’t have a team of doctors hovering over me like Ian Kinsler, who now appears to have a rib “stress reaction,” which is evidently one step down from a stress fracture. This will keep him on the disabled list longer than anticipated.
As playing ball is, sadly, not my profession, I still have to show up for work, downing anti-inflammatories like jelly beans, and wondering at what point I should try to find a sports medicine practitioner who’s in my insurance network, only to be told to be patient and rest. I know the pros must be impatient and frustrated to, but they’ll get by. (The Texas Rangers promoted their hot-shot rookie Jurickson Profar, to fill the roster spot. With all the “controversy” over Kinsler’s performance, I have two words: Wally Pipp. By the way, when I first read “stress reaction,” I thought it was a mental condition.)
Of course, playing ball is Kinsler’s profession; for me it’s just a hobby. But every week that passes by, to speak perhaps a bit morbidly, is one less week I’ll have to play. I consider that a major part of my identity and the thought of having to give it up fills me with dread and sadness. (Pardon my self-absorption; I have a birthday coming up.)
Just sayin’.
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