I thought I'd already hit my quota of peculiar spring training injury stories for the day earlier, but thanks to White Sox pitcher Chris Sale, here I am again.
The White Sox announced that Sale suffered a fractured right foot on Friday, and will miss at least three weeks. How did he fracture his foot, you ask? Via MLB.com:
The cause of the injury was described by general manager Rick Hahn as involving "unloading some stuff off the back of his truck and landing awkwardly when he got off the back of the truck."
Sale added that it was "just a freak incident. I've just done it a million times and this time it didn't work out so well.
"It's essentially a sprained ankle. I'll be fine. They aren't going to have to cut it off. It's still here," he said. "I'll be walking on it in a few days. Just doing therapy."
For those keeping track, we're up to a torn meniscus* from stepping on a sprinkler head, a fractured shoulder from getting out of a swimming pool, and now a fractured foot while stepping off of a truck.
Has there ever been a comprehensive study or explanation of why so many baseball players get injured in such stupid ways? It's not like other sports aren't completely free of them—NBA player Lionel Simmons once got tendonitis from playing too much Game Boy—but there seems to be an order of magnitude more in baseball.
[MLB]
Photo via Ezra Shaw/Getty