The Corey Seager Injury

I started out writing this last Friday, as a tribute to Corey Seager on his 24^th birthday. Then life, a date with Monica on Friday and a “date” with Candy (I still call her that) on Saturday happened…and I not only missed church, but I forgot to finish my blog, too.

Then, on Monday, along with all Dodger fans, I got the bad news that Seager was going to have to have Tommy John surgery and was finished for the season.

That’s real bad news.

Like Orel Hershiser said a few times when broadcasting Monday’s game, it’s a punch in the gut. It took me back to when I was a kid and my favorite player on the Smokies got injured and couldn’t play for the rest of the season. I’m sure a shrink could explain why I went back to feeling the way I did when I was a kid lol. I just know that I felt really bad on Monday. The Dodgers must have, too, since they lost. (Again.)

So…life without Corey Seager. It’s only been a couple days, but, when Chris Taylor comes up to bat, I still think my boy is going to be up next. He’s batted second as long as I’ve been following the Dodgers. (Don’t forget that I only moved to LA a couple years ago. My team was always the AA Tennessee Smokies in Knoxville.)

I played long enough to know that injuries happen. I had to get through a few myself. But they do heal, and you do come back, and everything is okay again. You just need patience and a little faith. I had a pitcher buddy in college who had to have Tommy John surgery like Seager will have. He made it back onto the mound for the last part of my senior year season and was throwing as good as new. It’s just that it took him a long time to get back…and a lot more patience than your average college kid has. Jackson started a lot of trouble after he’d had a few when he was rehabing.

Seager is 24, and looks really mature when they interview him. He’s probably got more patience than Jackson did. I hope he does.

The one good thing about this – and Corey said it when he was interviewed on Monday –is that we now know what the problem is and what to do to about it. As Meemaw says, you can’t fix it if you don’t know what’s broke. I think they were right to be conservative when the problem started last September and try less drastic things to get the elbow back into playing shape. You leave surgery as a last resort (Meemaw’s not the only one who says that.) It’s just time for the last resort.

I knew he said that he was fine at the beginning of the season, and it wasn’t until he made “a few bad throws” this past weekend that the problem became a problem. But let’s be honest: he hasn’t been playing like Corey Seager this year. He’s looked unhappy and unhappy with himself most of the time when he’s been batting. I’m not the only Dodger fan who was wondering why. Was he just not up to speed because he played so little during spring training? Was the elbow bothering him a little again? Turns out, something was really messed up with his elbow, and it was affecting everything he did. I’m sure part of it was he didn’t want to admit that there was a problem. No ball player anywhere likes the idea of having to miss a whole season. You’re a ball player. You want to play.

(So now you’re probably wondering why it is I’m not playing anymore. I guess I’ll have to explain that as I go along. But finding a softball team I could play on was priority one when I decided I was moving to Pasadena.)