How Bartolo Colon's Fat Ass Resurrected His Career

A Dominican medical team designed a rejuvenation treatment, in which they'd inject stem cells into the pitching arm, for Pedro Martinez. He turned them down. Bartolo Colon didn't.

Writes MLB Trade Rumors:

According to a story in the Dominican daily Diario Libre, the new life in Colon's arm could be partially attributable to two treatments of stem cells — or "células madre" as they're called in the Dominican Republic, where Colon had the procedures. Guzman was quick to insist, though, that when they took fatty tissue and bone marrow from Colon's hip and injected it into injured tissues in his rotator cuff and elsewhere in his right shoulder, they weren't doing anything revolutionary

Yep, they injected his butt fat into his arm, and he's stumbled ass-forward into a 2-1, 3.86 ERA season for the Yankees so far, at age 37. (He's throwing his fastball in the mid-90s, and his K/9 hasn't been this high since 2000!)

Of course, now the badonkadonk-phobic nerds at the commissioner's office are investigating the procedure, the New York Times reports. They're particularly curious since Colon's doctor has used HGH in the same surgery on previous patients.

But Colon's doc issued an ironclad denial: "I just won't give it to these guys. I don't need the stigma and that kind of reputation." So what if he performed the surgery in the Dominican Republic, and for free? Dr. Purita says, "It was not that it was illegal to do the procedure here in the United States... everything was above board." Well, "above board!" There you go.

Even if Selig's not an ass man, the rest of us should feel comfortable grabbing a fleshy fistful of the 2011 season's feel-good story. Do so before it turns back into a pumpkin muffin at midnight.

Pitcher's Treatment Draws Scrutiny [NYT]