The Knee's the Thing

Well, it looks like I'm done for a while.

Don't get excited. I'm not done blogging (much to your chagrin, I'm sure). I'm just done being active for a while. I'm going to be sitting on my ass for a couple months.

See, the infrequent posts on this blog are not necessarily an indication of any intellectual bankruptcy on my part, though one could argue that I indeed suffer from such an affliction. No, the infrequent posts are due more to the fact that I like playing outside. Without fail, I will forgo sitting at my computer to enjoy a game of beach volleyball, or to go catch a wave or two, or to go for a run at the park, or to generally do anything that keeps me moving and in shape.

But now, because of an issue with my right knee, I'm going to be done with all that physical activity for a while.

Just to bore you with the particulars:

Recently, while playing volleyball I began experiencing some pain and swelling in my knee that adversely affected my game. And just to be clear, when I say swelling, I don't mean just a little puffiness. Oh, would that I did. It looked like I had a cooked ham strapped to my knee for chrissake. Are you kidding me? Buddhists kept rubbing it for good luck. It had Goodyear painted on the side and did side work floating silently over sporting events on weekends. The thing was massive.

Icing it after playing helped marginally, but it was clear that some serious deviltry was at play in my knee joint. And so I swallowed my machismo and went to see the doctor.

On a personal level, my doctor's a good guy, and on a professional level, he's on staff with two local professional sports teams here in Houston. This guy has seen a lot of knee injuries, and has treated some of the top professional athletes in the world, so I was prepared to accept is diagnosis. . . . . Or is it prognosis? Wait. . . . it's both. I was prepared to accept his diagnosis first, and then his prognosis. (Thank you Merriam-Webster's Online.)

At any rate, after an X-Ray and an MRI scan, my doctor recommended I go under the knife.

The MRI shows that part of my femur bone where it meets the other junk at the knee joint has developed a sort of "bruise". There's a fancy medical term for it, but damned if I can remember what it is offhand.

Anyway, this bruise most likely occurred as a result of some traumatic blow at some point. I've tried to replay every hard hit and drunken fall I can remember, but still can't pinpoint the exact event that caused it, but apparently, continued strenuous activity has prevented it from healing at a natural pace, and that's what's causing the pain and swelling.

According to the doctor, that particular part of the femur bone is vascular, meaning that blood actually flows through it, and that's how nutrients are distributed to the bone. Well, because I've continued to play like a kid at recess, the bruised area is not getting enough blood, and that's a bad thing. In fact, if the bone doesn't get blood, there's a chance the it will essentially die, and that's an extremely bad thing. If the bone dies, the cartilage that surrounds it and cushions it from my shin bone will also die, and the dead cartilage will begin to erode causing me a lot of pain, which will lead to me weeping like a girl, and that's an extraordinarily bad thing. The only way to fix that would be with reconstructive knee surgery. I'd be looking at 18 months of rehab just to get back to walking, if that happens. And I'd probably have to forget about ever playing sports again.

So, what to do?

Well, if you guessed "install a new bionic knee", you'd be wrong — unfortunately.

Barring any lightning fast advancements in the field of bionics over the next few days, I must endure a different procedure. The doctor wants to go in and drill holes in my femur bone at various points in the bruised area to encourage new blood vessels to grow and improve flow, thereby saving the bone and more importantly the cartilage.

The procedure apparently is not that difficult, and my doctor has performed it many times with great success; at least that's what he told me. So I'm encouraged by that. But the recovery time requires I do minimal activity. He expects me to be on crutches for one to two months while they continually scan my leg via MRI to see if the vascularity (is that a word?) has improved. And then if all goes well and I am released for activity again, I will have to work slowly back into full exercise mode.

In addition, since I'm pretty much going to be a statue for a long while, I'm seriously going to have to adjust my diet. Otherwise, before you know it, I'll have small moons orbiting me and people will start trying to push me back into the water.

Oh, and as I was typing this post, I got an email from the admin here at my office. She says she might be able to get me a handicap parking space for when I'm on crutches. That's a nice thing I guess, but I don't know if I should accept it, or man up and park in my normal spot. I mean, how many women could find a pasty, soft, semi-crippled man with an unusually strong gravitational pull attractive?

And that's really what it's all about; getting chicks. Does a sedentary blob of goo stand a chance?

I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to go out and get face-down-in-the-gutter drunk tonight. It's not like I have anything else to do.

We Only Kid the Ones We Love

I love this time of year, especially as it relates to the Major League Baseball season; the dog days of summer are finally gone, the easily amused have seen the colored leaves in New England, Bud Selig doesn't have to do his painfully bad act where he pretends to be interested in Barry Bonds anymore, and the World Series is but a few days away. It's truly a magical time of year.

The only problem is, nobody seems to care. If the number of tailgaters is any indication, the NFL preseason was more interesting than the two current playoff series, and the various fantasy leagues in both football and basketball are getting more press than the penant races.

Now the reasons nobody cares are numerous. You all no doubt could think of a dozen or so off the top of your collective head; that is if you cared at all. But some of the reasons baseball suffers in popularity are more obvious than others. For example, down through the years, baseball has steadfastly refused to update itself to satisfy the over-developed short attention span of those who would be its new fan base. And its smug attitude toward cheating, rising ticket prices, and sociopathic behavior in later years has alienated much of the remaining faithful to the point of apathy.

I mean what does it say about a sport when the all-time hits leader is banned for life for making a few bets, for risking his own money, for not hurting anyone but himself, but Kenny Rogers is suspended for just two starts after he violently manhandles a cameraman who is half his size? "Hi, I'm the commissioner of Major League Baseball, and if you're the type of person who enjoys his personal freedoms, we don't ever want to see you again, but if you beat up little people for no reason, you're our kind of guy."

Of course the Rogers incident was a couple of seasons ago, but when you look at things like that, it seems baseball has no one to blame for its waning popularity but itself . . . and possibly Tim McCarver . . . just because.

But what else is causing this apparent apathy toward baseball?

Well, the Red Sox curse — which by the way, absolutely no one beyond the reach of the T ever cared a single wit about, despite the story being crammed down our throats ad nauseam — has been gone for a few seasons now, so the Boston fans no longer have any reason to care about the baseball season (though their team is doing well). They hardly even care that the Yankees were eliminated after almost overtaking them in the regular season division race.

People in Los Angeles never cared about baseball to begin with, and the smaller markets don't generate the revenue, so they're pretty much treated as non-entities by the league.

If chicks still dig the long ball, it's been a disappointing few seasons to be a tater groupie, as homerun totals are down yet again this year. The only jag offs that were exhibiting even a pretense of interest in baseball before a major late-season stumble and a quick playoff exit were the New York fans, but those pale-skinned desk jockeys have never swung a bat, and all 8 million of them probably throw like a girl. They just had nothing better to do.

Yankee fans don't even seem to care that Roger Clemens has gone from being one of the most admired players in baseball to the poster boy for everything that is wrong with professional sports. How can a man hold the most successful franchise in the history of baseball hostage and still have fans? It's beyond me how the game is still alive.

Does baseball only exist as a mental distraction for teenage boys experiencing sex with a partner for the first time? Or as a life preserver for crusty old sports writers who are frightened by the fast-paced, ever-changing sports world of the present?

They do often insist on perpetuating the tired nostalgia of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Bob Gibson amid the rock 'n roll games of today where the athletes are young and strong, and the action is fast. They cling to baseball as an icon of constancy, even as they are mired and sink in a swirling maelstrom of X Games, roller derbies, speed ball, and ultimate smash mouth sports.
Overall, baseball's lingering philosophy is quite dated and inadequate for a modern sport. It still considers itself the great American pastime, boasting that it has remained unchanged as the decades of progress have pushed the rest of the country forward.

Yes, unchanged. Baseball is the only sport that takes pride in having always been the activity that comes closest in enjoyment to watching the grass grow. Baseball games are about as much fun as standing in line at the DMV. Thank god they serve beer. Otherwise there would be no possible way to tolerate the nine-inning parade of corpses.

There is a medical term for the state of excitement achieved by the average baseball fan; it's called catatonia. I'm not saying the fans get bored, but in what other sport do the fans get so excited about a mis-hit ball? Are you kidding me? I once went to a baseball game and Jonestown broke out.

But baseball has tried to boost its excitement level over the years. Players began using steroids, and soon records were falling like Ted Williams' core temperature. Bonds finally surpassed Hank Aaron's all-time homerun mark. Unfortunately, the American public, though fond of towering homeruns, frowns on records for Most Brutal Attack on a Spouse, or the Fiercest Locker Room Wall Punch. And I'd wager it sees keeping any stats whatsoever on back acne to be in poor taste.

But you have to admire the conviction displayed by the more prominent mesomorphs in the league. In the face of suspicion and overwhelming evidence, they all continually denied using steroids when even a child knows humans don't add 40 pounds of muscle and four hat sizes after the age of 35. Some of these guys were so swollen, I was afraid they were going to explode. My god, in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, Barry Bonds' head had its own moon orbiting it.

Still, despite its troubles, baseball will always have a place in the hearts of the fans and in American culture. Its subtle nuances are timeless. Where else can one see the glorious majesty of the infield fly rule in action, the timeless excitement of a free base (or run) for a balk, the spectacular cowardice of walking a batter on purpose, or the heartrending suspense of a throw around the horn?

Christ, is this a sport, or a group of blunt force trauma victims practicing their motor skills?

Oh, and let's not forget all the scratching and the spitting. It's a mere hundred bucks for two adults to see a goon in a tight uniform adjust his package and spew a hawker into the dirt. Not bad for a night's entertainment. Plus, there's nothing like seeing a batter charge the mound after the pitcher hurls a hundred mile an hour fastball at his head. The benches empty, as each player joins the frenzied brawl. I continue to watch baseball games with the sole hope of seeing just one player take his friggin' bat with him. You know, there's a name for people that are this brain-dead and stupid. They're called football players.

But I digress.

The short of it is, fall is here, and the October classic is on the horizon, generating an excitement level that hasn't been witnessed since the release of "Police Academy 3" on Beta. And with the revamped production trends of televised games, the upcoming broadcasts of the playoffs and World Series will certainly make the latest high-tech video game look like . . . well, like a baseball game.