The WGOM

If you remember in the spring, Joe Mauer caused some hearts in Twinsville to flutter when he said that he had a "stress reaction" in his leg. I'll admit that I'd never heard of a stress reaction, but I'm no medical expert. Joe's had some injuries this season, but it does not appear that any of them were related to a stress reaction in his leg.

Top Jimmy, everyone's favorite hack took a swipe (more than one, actually) at Mauer's toughness in his latest "gem" of a column when he said the following:

In spring training [Mauer] caused a scare with what was termed a "stress reaction." I've spoken with trainers in other sports who have told me there is no such thing.

That seems to me to be a not-so-thinly veiled accusation that Mr. Mauer invented an injury. Trainers. In other sports. No such thing.

Top Jimmy apparently doesn't have access to The Google. Only recently moved from the Ditch, though, I do. I typed in "'stress reaction' bone" into The Mighty Google and my computer groaned and with a DING! it produced a link to the website of Dr. Stephen M. Pribut, D.P.M. Dr. Pribut is "a past President of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine (AAPSM), and past President of the District of Columbia Podiatric Medical Association. He served as Chair of the AAPSM Shoe Committee for 5 years. He currently serves on the American Podiatric Medical Association's Clinical Practice Advisory Committee." He's been in practice since 1980 and "specializes in Podiatric Sports Medicine". He has the following to say about stress reactions and fractures:

Chronic Repetitive Stress Injuries to Bone (stress fractures and stress reactions) often result from dramatic changes in training. Training errors of a variety of types are a major contributing factor to this type of injury. The use of the word “fracture” in many cases is a misnomer. There is in most grades of this injury no actual fracture line, although in the most significant and severe cases a fracture line is visible and seen on X-ray or more readily on an MRI scan. In a large number of these injuries it is actually a stress related injury or an over stress syndrome of a particular bone. This type of injury in the absence of x-ray signs (and sometimes in the absence of a positive bone scan or MRI scan) has, some years ago termed a pre-stress fracture, then a stress reaction of bone, all of which leads to much confusion within the terminology and among clinicians and patients.

Here's another source that discusses a stress reaction as being on the continuum of bone injuries suffered in sports related activities:

Another situation encountered in clinical practice is the painful, tender focal area of bone that demonstrates a mildly increased uptake of radioisotope, insufficient to be classified as a stress fracture. This has been termed 'stress reaction'. It would appear that there is a continuum of bone response to stress that ranges from mild (bone strain) to severe (stress fracture). The clinical features of bone strain, stress reaction and stress fractures are summarized in Table 2.5.

The authors of this page, Peter Brukner and Karim Kahn wrote a book entitled Clinical Sports Medicine.

Here's another description of a stress reaction from WEBMD's emedicine.com:

Advanced cross sectional imaging has demonstrated that bone responds to repetitive loading via a continuum of stress responses that precede the onset of clinical symptoms. In their study involving a cohort of military recruits, Kiuru et al reported that only 40% of the MRI findings suggestive of a low-grade bone stress injury correlated with clinical symptoms (Kiuru, 2005). The vast majority of the radiographically detected areas of bone stress reaction remained clinically silent despite uninterrupted training, and disappeared upon follow-up imaging at the conclusion of the 5-month training program. Therefore, under normal circumstances, bone appears able to keep up with necessary repairs without manifesting clinically significant injury as it remodels in accordance with Wolff law. However, when a bone's reparative and adaptive capacity is overwhelmed by chronic overload, damage can begin to accumulate. If allowed to progress, this multifactorial process may eventually result in a stress fracture.

But, the trainers that Top Jimmy talked to never heard of it. That's good enough for Top Jimmy. Besides, those stupid doctors have websites. Can't trust them over some trainer.

Joe Christenson writes that beat reporters "walk a fine line when stating our opinions."

I'll bet that is only the case when his opinion differs from that of the Twins organization.

Beat writers report facts basically, and I don't have much of a problem with that. In order to get access to those facts, they have to have relationships with players. The players that treat them well make their jobs easier. Players and managers are more inclined to treat the beat writer better when there is positive stuff in the newspaper. So, positive stuff gets put in the newspaper. Negative stuff, like a star player berating a minor league beat writer, does not make the paper.

Our intrepid beat writers are so afraid of losing access that they tremble when they work up the gumption to suggest that batting Punto ninth and Joe Mauer second would be a good idea.

Christenson:

La Velle weighed in with an opinion about the batting order a few weeks back, and Ron Gardenhire really let him have it. “Nice blog,” Gardy kept saying, and while it was all in good fun, it was a reminder that beat writers — those of us who face these guys every day — walk a fine line when stating our opinions.

Yeah, wouldn't want to have to face the manager after suggesting that he is less than perfect. No wonder everyone thinks that the Twins are just better human beings than the rest of major league baseball (except for that mean Kyle Lohse).

I just got home a few minutes ago and I went onto the deck, grabbed a bottle of beer, popped it into my bottle couzie and sat down at the computer. So, yes, I’ll admit that I was having a brewski while writing this post. However, since I started writing this before I started drinking the beer and because the idea for this post was in my head before I wrote it, I wouldn’t say that the post is alcohol fueled or anything. Besides, even if I’d drunk the whole thing first, at my size it’s gonna take more than a bottle of beer to get me to the point where I’m babbling incoherently (or at least because of the alcohol).

It seems that everyone these days is self-absorbed. I mean, Gleeman’s got the ear thing going on, and Reusse, well we know that he’s written a few columns that were alcohol fueled back in the day – and I’m beginning to wonder if his latest diatribe wasn’t ghost written by Johnny Walker. I’m a big fan of Reusse – hell I stole the name “Stick and Ball Guy” from one of his columns – but it’s pretty apparent that he doesn’t think much of me or my kind. I suppose you could call Reusse a little bit of a blogger bigot. That’s a little disappointing – I’ve always thought that Ol’ Pat was a good guy. But, he’s got a stereotypical image of a blogger as being some loser writing in his undershorts in Mom’s basement. I might write a few columns in my undershorts, but the woman in this place isn’t my mother. Although, you’d never know it sometimes the way she bosses me around. Good grief. Let me give you an example. On Sunday mornings, I have to go and get a copy of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I don’t read the Strib – in print, that is. Hell, that woman needs her paper. I read it online.

Click here to continue reading What To Do With That Paper...

On Sunday, TJ was talking about access to athletes and I missed it. Link:

Long after he spoke on the field and said nothing and spoke in a news conference and said nothing, Peyton Manning stood in front of his locker, well after the Super Bowl ended, and held court, and suddenly he was likeable.

He told stories, joked about his teammates, made fun of himself, spoke of his family and his plans to celebrate. This is why access matters to sportswriters -- access turns ciphers and cartoon characters into real people.

Or, if the player is savvy, access turns ciphers and cartoon characters into PR images. It's absolutely freaking hilarious that Manning -- who has been the best player in the game for the last five years and the most criticized is now lauded as being real people and likeable. I think there was a lot of realness and likability in Manning before -- his frustration with not winning the big one was apparent in his actions on the field. Yes, he criticized teammates -- in other words, he made some mistakes -- but he was also striving and straining to achieve. Quite likable in my book, even if he hadn't won. He'd competed with the best of them. But, now that he's won, he's affable and providing some access into a sunny side. Hey, if I was the winning quarterback in the Super Bowl, I'd be affable, too. He's won, he's told a few stories. He's human. Blecch.

Ah yes. It's all about the access. Because with access comes good quotes, stories that write themselves, and human drama, no matter how contrived it might be. Without access, you have to rely on analysis. And hell, who wants to provide that?

But, yes, given the current state of affairs, this statement by TJ is undeniably true:

This is why the Vikings have made a terrible mistake by limiting access to their key people.

If Childress was more forthcoming with the press, they might provide him more cover. As it is, the locals are out for blood. Childress made the mistake of not kissing the established local media's collective ass. Big mistake. An even bigger mistake than being an incompetent football coach.

Update: If TJ were to use his access, say, to get some information rather than feel-good stories, he wouldn't have had this in his Sunday column: "Twins negotiate with M&M Boys: Doesn't look good for long-term deals with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau...." Heh.

Top Jimmy strikes again. At the end of a pretty good column about the SuperDuperBowl he ends with this line:

Plus, a Colts victory could be dangerous -- the celebration might force Indianapolis to shut down its street.

Try the veal. Tip your wait staff. I'm here all week.