Looking Back:
Playing Injured
The impressive performance by the Chiefs’ injured QB, Patrick Mahomes, during the Saturday win over the Jaguars reminded me of other great performances by injured athletes. Most of the following I watched. Let’s hope Mahomes gets healthy.
Starting with Emmitt Smith. Smith, with a dislocated shoulder, stayed in the game in 1993 to help his Cowboys beat the Giants and went on to win the Super Bowl.
Next, do you remember Kurt Gibson coming up to the plate in the first game of the the1988 World Series? It was the Dodgers vs the Athletics. Gibson was put in the game as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning even though he was hobbled with two bad knees. He was obviously in pain, yet after a long at bat, he hit a walk-off home run. He circled the bases slowly, (adding to the theatrics). He made the now famous ‘fist pumping’ motion as he rounded the bases.
The Bloody Sock game: Curt Shilling in 2004 was playing for Boston in game six of the ALC vs the Yankees. In an earlier game in the series, he had torn an ankle tendon. The team doc used some experimental sutures to ‘repair’ it. Either from the sutures or from shots, his sock was filling up with blood (you could see it). In game six he stayed in the game and gave his team seven good innings. The Red Sox went on to win the World Series and broke the Bambino Curse.
The Flu Game: Some mention the Michael Jordan ‘Flu Game’ as heroic. In 1997 Jordan had pretty tough flu symptoms and it was not known if he could play. The Bulls were playing the Utah Jazz in game five of the NBA Finals. Jordan not only played, but scored 38 points in the important, hotly contested, 90-88 win. Note: If you like conspiracy theories, some like to question how sick Jordan really was. I thought he looked ‘sick’, but if you really have the flu, Jordan or not, could you really play?
Tiger Woods has had a great many challenges in his career (on and off the course). Remember when he was fighting knee problems and was hurting a lot, but was still playing. If you watched the 2008 U.S, Open he made shot after shot sometimes looking like he was doing it on one leg. He won the Open on the first hole of sudden-death. It was his fourteenth win of a Major. He soon after had surgery.
I did not see the next two examples. Supposedly the Eagles’ Donovan McNabb was not known for being tough enough. But in this game he proved the critics wrong. He stayed in a game with a ‘broken ankle’. It was in a 2002 game, Eagles vs the Arizona Cardinals. The Eagles won 38-14.
You can YouTube this one. In a 2002 college football game Marshall’s QB, Bryron Leftwich, was so injured that his linemen would literally carry him up to the line of scrimmage after the plays. The Owls made a comeback but lost the game to Akron. Many think this may be one of the gutsiest sports efforts ever. Leftwich had a modest nine-year NFL career, and six years as an NFL coach.
Maybe the most dramatic and most famous ‘injury performance’ was Kerri Strug. It was in the 1996 Olympics. The team needed Kerri to get a near perfect score on her vault to push the team to a Gold Medal over Russia. She injured her ankle on her first attempt. On her last attempt, she ran up to the vault tolerating the pain, her vault looked great but watching you knew she had to hit the landing. But, on one foot? She stuck the landing, but immediately lifted her injured ankle and fell to the mat. She
