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Nomar Garciaparra Is More Than Injury Prone, He's Injury Guaranteed

Jun 23, 2008 – 5:10 PM
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Josh Alper

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Sometimes you hear a piece of news that stops you short. Other times you hear something that makes so much sense that you can't believe no one stumbled across it before. The fact that Nomar Garciaparra is genetically predisposed to muscle injuries falls into the latter category.

In his thus far fruitless attempts to return to action following a calf injury, Garciaparra consulted with a physical therapist in Boston and found out he was baseball's answer to Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable. Garciaparra's condition causes excess scar tissue to develop at the injury site which both limits his rehabilitation and increases the likelihood that he'll reinjure himself later on down the road.

"It would have been nice if I had found out a lot sooner that I had this," said Garciaparra, who likened the problem to trying to pull a rope through a hole when the rope has several knots in it. "That's why I keep straining different muscles."

The only way he can combat the scar tissue is through painful daily stretching and bending. You have to feel bad for Garciaparra. Finding out about this at this point in his career is sort of like hearing you were misdiagnosed with cancer after going through years of chemo. It's good news, sure, but all that was wasted along the way has to really burn.

(H/T Can't Stop The Bleeding)
Filed under: Sports

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