Baseball's the home of the amazing injury magnets

                    

	Carl Pavano: born under a bad sign? Al Bello/Getty Images
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Evel Knievel's legendary carcass landed in a heap in the Guinness Book of World Records by dint of his breaking 35 bones, but that geezer spent his days jumping over rows of buses on a motorcycle. Our National Pastime -- a relatively effete sport -- is the home of guys whose injury histories make you wince, but only because you can see the open manhole in their path every time they simply step on the field.

Guys like Boston's J.D. Drew have media guide bio entries for any given year that inevitably begin with: "Appeared in just 109 games in an injury-plagued season, but made the most of his playing time."

In eight seasons, Drew -- who has been accused of being softer than a baby's behind -- has cooled his aching dogs on DL while nursing a strained right quad, sprained left ankle, broken right pinky, sprained back, right knee tendonitis, strained right oblique, fractured left wrist and something called chondromalacia of the left knee. He's had surgery on his right shoulder, right patella tendon, and left foot -- to remove a cyst. The guy might as well have been skydiving without a chute. One imagines that Red Sox fans are rattling their rosaries now that Drew's mortal remains have been brought on board for the low, low discount price of $70 million.

Meanwhile in Chicago, the once-promising Mark Prior is swimming against a scurvy tide that began to roll in when he collided with Atlanta's Marcus Giles and was knocked onto the DL with a right shoulder contusion in 2003. Since then, Prior has been a denizen of the DL with right achilles tendonitis (2004), inflammation of the right elbow -- later fractured by a line drive (2005) -- a sore right shoulder and a sore right oblique muscle (2006). His teammate, Kerry Wood, is a bit of matchstick man himself, having suffered a torn right elbow tendon (1999), strained left oblique (2000), strained right tricep (2004), sore right shoulder (2005), and a partially torn right rotator cuff (repaired by surgery last year). As if all that woe wasn't enough, Wood went ass over teakettle out of a hot tub at home and bruised his ribs right before the start of training camp.

I can understand athletes in rough contact sports such as football, hockey, auto racing, horse racing and rugby accruing such an impressive waybill of injuries. Eric Lindros' collection of eight concussions and a torn wrist ligament seems par for the rink. But in this age of year-round specialized training, magical medical emoluments and pitch counts, you're still apt to hear major league broadcasters intone on any given night:

"Uh oh. Buzowski's pitch count is up to 11, Tim. You gotta be concerned after the crafty lefthander threw nine last night on top of all that grueling warming up in the pen"

"That's right, Al. You know Joe's got the hook ready to protect his team's $11 million investment."

Baseball may be the only North American sport where injuries take on a life of their own and fuel a media circus. Witness Carl Pavano, recently anointed "The King of Pain" by the New York Post for his ongoing litany of physical maladies and mishaps. Since signing a four-year, $44-million deal with the Yankees in 2004, Pavano has been rendered inert after being skulled by a line drive and suffering a bout of right shoulder tendonitis (2005). He endured lower back stiffness, the indignity of bruised buttocks, surgery to remove chips in his right elbow, and broken ribs in a car accident. (One suspects that the bruised buttocks were the result of a swift kick from one notorious Principal Owner.)