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la_samtyrThe Toll
There’s a price for sports greatness, measured in a lifetime of pain. Eight veteran athletes tell you what it’s like.
Maxim, Dec 2004
By John U. Bacon, Charles Coxe, Sean Cunningham, and Steve Mazzucchi
1. PATRICK EWING
Center for the New York Knicks (’85–’00), Seattle Supersonics (’00–’01), Orlando Magic (’01–’02). Now assistant coach of the Houston Rockets.
“My first surgery was my first season in the NBA,” recounts Hall of Fame shoo-in Patrick Ewing. Unfortunately, it would become a theme. Over an amazing 17-year career during which he averaged 21 points per game, Ewing reached the NBA Finals twice—but returned to the operating table far more frequently.
“I had about six knee surgeries and one wrist surgery,” Ewing says. The operation on his wrist actually required the longest recovery time: eight months. “It was excruciating,” the stoic Ewing finally admits after prodding. Only two years removed from the court, Ewing still hasn’t shaken the unwritten code dictating that athletes don’t really talk about being hurt. But he’ll acknowledge there were times he had to force himself out on the court when he probably shouldn’t have, notably the 1999 playoffs. “Those games against Indiana, where I played on one Achilles…” he trails off, cringing slightly with the memory. He’d learn the precise diagnosis later: His left Achilles tendon, connecting his calf muscle to his heel, was torn. All he knew at the time was it hurt like hell, but this was the playoffs, and games needed to be won.
“I limped, hipped, and hopped,” Ewing laughs, remembering how he tried to avoid aggravating the injury.
“When I tore it, I felt it pop,” he says. “But I didn’t know what it was. So I kept playing.” He only went to the bench when the tear was confirmed, to avoid a crippling full rupture. As a result, he missed the finals against the San Antonio Spurs, and the Knicks lost. Ewing feels he could have lasted another year or two in the league, but he’d had enough.
“I guess I lost the spark,” he says. He’d grown tired of battling in the paint with Shaquille O’Neal (“Play against a guy like Shaq, your body’s going to be sore the next day,” he admits) and the continuous physical damage, such as broken fingers, that required surgery and screwed with his jump shot. During his last season, he averaged only six points a game.
Now an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets, Ewing has no desire to play pro basketball again, although he downplays the impact his injuries have had on him. “When you play sports,” he says, “you learn there’s some pain you have to deal with. That’s the game.”
Patrick’s ankle
A. Ewing felt a pop in his Achilles tendon in the ’99 playoffs, but kept playing…
B. …until docs confirmed it was torn.
2. EDDIE GEORGE
Running back, Houston/Tennessee (’96–’03), Dallas (present).
On Sunday, Eddie George is one of the most powerful men on Earth.
On Monday and Tuesday, he can’t walk.
“When you try to get out of bed on Monday, your whole body hurts,” he says. “It goes from your neck to your shoulders, your ribs, your thighs, your calves, all the way to your toes.”
George isn’t too concerned about the future, with one exception: his shoulders. He’s trying not to show it, but George’s shoulders are killing him. “Any football player is going to expect to have long-term soreness in his shoulders,” he protests, but George has trouble sleeping. “It’s constant, man, not something that goes away.” His abused joints, tendons, and ligaments have already transformed the perennial all-pro to a supporting player at the ripe old age of 31.
“The hardest part is getting ready for the season,” he says. “The older you get, the earlier you have to start. You can’t take four months off and expect to be OK. You can’t allow scar tissue to build up. The fans see the fun parts—the big plays, dancing in the end zone—but the average fan has no idea the amount of preparation required to go from being unable to walk on Monday and Tuesday to practicing full speed on Thursday. The physical toll, the emotional toll, the mental toll…it’s very demanding.”
But is it worth it? “Definitely. I’ve fulfilled a dream,” George says, then smiles. “But maybe I won’t be saying that on the operating table!”
Eddie’s shoulder
A. 2004 playoffs: Making a tackle after an interception, George separated his shoulder.
B. Despite strained ligaments, he popped it back in and returned to the game.
3.TED LINDSAY
Hall of Fame left winger, Detroit (’44–’57, ’64–’65), Chicago (’57–’60).
They call Ted Lindsay Scarface, and he’s earned the name: No athlete has ever taken more stitches—over 500 in his head alone, he claims. “You get some cocoa butter and vitamin E oil and you can rub a lot of those scars away,” Lindsay laughs. “In fact, I'm better-looking now than I was back then…which ain’t very good!”
In junior hockey, a couple of Toronto scouts came to see Lindsay play, but he’d already gone to the hospital: An opponent’s skate blade had sliced through his calf muscle, leaving him writhing on the ice in a pool of blood. The scouts signed his teammate instead, so Lindsay joined the Detroit Red Wings, where he played with Sid Abel and Gordie Howe and won four Stanley Cups in six years. “That injury changed my whole life,” he says, “and I’m not complaining.”
Although a perennial all-star (11 times) and top-10 scorer (eight times), “all anybody ever talks about is the fighting,” admits the man opponents called Terrible Ted. One of the toughest players in NHL history, the 5'8", 160-pound Lindsay collected 1,808 penalty minutes over his career. “I was hitting everybody and getting hit by everybody and fighting everybody, and everybody was fighting me,” Lindsay says.
In a game in the 1952–53 season, Lindsay broke his foot: “It was just a fracture; luckily everything was still in place.” But with the playoffs starting, he wasn’t about to sit. “I put my skate on, and that was my splint,” Lindsay explains. “I got over the pain during warmups. Once my system got going, I kind of forgot about it. Didn't feel much pain again till after the game when I was trying to take the damn skate off.”
Until recently, Lindsay still played in old-timer’s games, slamming opponents into the boards at age 77. “I just hung ’em up two years ago,” Lindsay says. “I had surgery on my back and they put in a metal plate. If I can’t body check, why skate? It was a wonderful, wonderful life…and the damn thing was too short!”
Ted’s face
A. Over his career Lindsay took more than 500 stitches in his head.
B. His nose has been broken so frequently that the cartilage is gone.
# Head Shot
One time Lindsay was clobbered over the head by Montreal defenseman Butch Bouchard. “He didn’t mean it,”says Lindsay. “I was pivoting along the boards, very low. Butch swung his stick and got me just over the left ear. No stitches, no concussion—I’ve got too thick a skull!” But it was enough to put him in the hospital.
# The Kindest Cut
“I’d already taken 12 or 14 stitches under my right eye,” Lindsay tells us. “We were playing in Boston, and I made the mistake of getting the stitches out before the game. I got hit with an elbow under the same eye and opened it up all over again. I can’t remember who it was, but it was a good elbow.”
# A Nose For Hockey
Lindsay’s nose has been broken so many times from “a lot of sticks, a lot of pucks, and some pretty good fists,” that there’s no cartilage left. “I only hope I gave more than I took. I believe I kept the ledger pretty even,” he says. “I never intentionally cut anyone, but I did everything I could to help us win.”
# A Broken Glass Smile
A hockey player doesn’t leave the game—he has the trainer stitch him up on the bench so he can get back on the ice. No anesthetic. “It never hurt because your face was still numb from taking the punch, so you could take the needle,” Lindsay says. “A few stitches and nature takes care of the rest.”
4. STEVE YZERMAN
Center and captain of the Detroit Red Wings (1983–present).
It’s a beautiful day. You step outside to enjoy the sun and a day of mowing the lawn, going for a run, maybe playing a little basketball.
Simple, right? Not for Steve Yzerman. The 21-year NHL veteran has to wear sunglasses whenever he goes outside—daylight still burns, the result of a slap shot that hit him in the face last spring, smashing his orbital bone. Running and basketball are also out of the question, since Yzerman obliterated his right knee against a goal post in 1988. After five operations, all the cartilage in his knee is gone. If he plays soccer with his daughters, he kicks with his left foot to keep the bones in his right knee from grinding against each other. When he goes to bed at night, he sleeps on his side and rests his head on a special pillow designed to help relieve the constant pain in his neck since he herniated a disc lifting weights a decade ago. (He suffered repeated “stingers” before doctors removed the ruined disc entirely and fused the remaining vertebrae together.)
And that’s just the off-season.
“This hurts, that hurts,” Yzerman says, dismissing his maladies. “I probably feel a lot older than I am, but it’s just a matter of dealing with aggravating, nagging things. You’re used to dealing with daily pain, so it’s not really a big deal.”
His eyesight is improving, but Yzerman’s knee and neck will continue crumbling for the rest of his life. Somehow he’s found a bright side. “Skating is not a high-impact activity for knees. If I played a sport that involved running, I’d have been done at least five years ago. If I take care of myself, when I retire I’ll still be able to do everything I want to do: snow-ski, water-ski, golf. I was a lousy golfer before my injuries, and now I’m still lousy. You have to grit your teeth and bear it. At the end of the day, it’ll all be worth it.”
Steve’s knee
A. His ruptured posterior cruciate ligament was never repaired.
B. His knee has no cartilage.
C. In 2002 docs sawed through Yzerman’s tibia and inserted a wedge to realign the joint.
5. TRAVIS PASTRANA
Twenty-one-year-old undefeated X-Games motocross champion.
Travis Pastrana, ESPN’s 2001 Motocross Rider of the Year, loves his sport—a sport that gives him such a thrill that his virtually comatose pulse rate of 36 beats per minute skyrockets to 195 when he’s trying to manhandle a 220-pound bike. “According to researchers,” he says, “only World Cup soccer requires more conditioning and endurance.”
Yes, but soccer players don’t usually deal with torn rotator cuffs, broken wrists, cracked collar bones, and shattered pelvises. Only 21 years old, Pastrana has already broken “at least” 30 bones—and that doesn’t even include a 1998 accident where he dislocated his sacroiliac joints, separating his pelvis from his spine—but it’s the multiple concussions that concern him the most. Pastrana’s already suffered 12 “decent ones” that put him out cold. He once blacked out during a race and, still unconscious, plowed his bike into the Daytona stands at 50 mph. “That didn’t work out so well,” he observes.
Pastrana loves motocross so much, he’ll do anything to get back on his bike, including having a doctor pin his broken wrist together so he could wrap it around the handle. After nine operations on his left knee and seven on his right, Pastrana has to stick a syringe in his knees and drain the fluid just so he can bend them enough to get his feet into the pegs of his bike for a training lap or two. Imagine doctors sticking a balloon into your knee and filling it up with water until you can’t bend the joint even an inch without feeling like the whole thing is about to explode, and you’ve got some idea of what Pastrana lives with every day.
“I’ve raced with just about every injury you can name,” he says, “but we don’t tell anyone about them because you don’t want your competition to know. Most people don’t understand. If you don’t get on your bike because you can’t bend your knee far enough to get your foot in the peg, the fans will call you a wimp. They say, ‘Oh, if I was paid as much as these guys, I would train for every race.’ That’s great if you’re healthy, but what if your knee is frozen stiff when you wake up and you need a few Advil and a hot tub just to be able to walk?”
“If you’re willing to settle for fifth or 10th place, OK, but I don’t like to lose. And that’s the price you pay.”
Travis’ pelvis
A. A botched jump dislocated his freakin’ spine.
B. His hips have been broken in several places.
6. RON KRAMER
Tight end, Green Bay (’57–’64), Detroit (’65–’67).
“I thought I was beating the hell out of everyone back then,” muses former Packer Ron Kramer. “But now that I look back, I think they might’ve gotten the best of me.”
Lawrence Taylor said when he gets up in the morning, his joints crack so much it sounds like he’s making popcorn. Kramer, the 69-year-old former tight end on Vince Lombardi’s famous Packer sweep, sounds like a firing range. “They say there are, what, 206 bones in the human body?” Kramer asks. “Well, I broke at least 50 of them. Arms, legs, ankles, toes, and more broken fingers than I’ve got fingers—a lot of them just from catching passes.”
That was the easy part. Since retiring Kramer’s had one hip and both knees replaced. He’s undergone three surgeries to repair both rotator cuffs, five knee surgeries, and an operation called a “fusion laminectomy,” he says, “where they fuse the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae together. They chip the bone off the crest of the ilium [the hip], and they fuse the transverse process—part of the vertebrae. I’ve had a couple of those. Now I think I know more than the doctors about this stuff!”
Kramer is still quick on his feet, but only figuratively. His optimism can’t hide the fact that he has to push himself up to a standing position and carries a bag of broken bones with him whenever he shuffles down the hall.
Kramer will have to go under the knife again just to keep going, but despite the wear and tear he echoes the sentiments of of the walking wounded: “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing. Hell, you take a chance in life when you do anything,” he says. “Football was great fun.”
Ron’s spine
A. Docs chipped bone off Kramer’s hip…
B. …and used it to fuse his vertebrae.
7. DAVE SHAND
Journeyman defenseman, Atlanta Flames (’76–’80), Toronto Maple Leafs (’80–’81, ’82–’83), Washington Capitals (’83–’85), assorted minor league teams.
Whenever Dave Shand goes to a new doctor, the receptionist asks him to list his injuries and surgeries. “I start at my toes,” Shand says, “and work my way up.” The list is so long he has to use the back of the form.
“Broke my feet seven times,” he says. “Broke both ankles. Four knee surgeries. Multiple hip pointers. Six or seven broken ribs. Two surgeries on my left elbow. Two surgeries on my right shoulder, including plates that are still in there.
“Then I get to my head. About 250 stitches all told. Broke my nose six times—there’s no bone left in that thing. Broke my jaw twice. Broke my orbital cavity once. Oh, and seven or eight concussions,” he laughs. “I can’t remember exactly how many.”
The doctor invariably asks if Shand’s been in a few car accidents.
“No,” Shand answers. “Just 13 years of pro hockey.”
None of this was part of the big-league dreams of a 19-year-old kid from Cold Lake, Alberta, the first-round pick of the Atlanta (now Calgary) Flames in 1976. But after four years with the Flames, Shand was shipped to Toronto, Washington, and five minor league teams before finishing his career in Austria.
“I was never the number one defenseman on any team,” Shand explains. “So I couldn’t afford to let someone else take my spot. If it was a choice between sitting out a couple of games and healing or taking a needle and playing, I took the needle. In Washington I played with future Hall of Fame defensemen Scott Stevens, Rod Langway, and Larry Murphy. If they got hurt, they sat out a few games. If I sat out, Kevin Hatcher was waiting to take my spot. I knew how good he was, and I just couldn’t give them an excuse to take me out of the lineup.”
In 1989 Shand couldn’t stomach another summer of gut-wrenching conditioning sessions and hung up his skates. Although his hockey paychecks stopped coming in years ago—at his peak he made about $100,000 a year—Shand’s body is still paying the price: “Cortisone shots corrode your joints,” Shand says. “So now I’m 48 and I have to have two hip replacements in the next two years. And I don’t think I’m done, either.”
Shand describes his hips as a “nonstop toothache. You feel it all the time, but there’s nothing you can do about it.” He takes three Vicodins each night before bed, lies on his side with a heating pad on his right hip and three pillows between his legs, and still only manages three or four hours of sleep most nights. (As for sex, Shand says, “Like most former players, you have no choice: You’re on the bottom, and you hope your wife’s enthusiastic.”) When he wakes up he takes a high-strength ibuprofen and a Vioxx (now conveniently recalled) to ease the pain and swelling, then uses a 9-iron as a cane to go down the stairs.
Through all the pain, Shand’s maintained an unshakable sense of humor: “I went to the wedding of another old player’s kid, and it was hilarious. Some guys hobble left, some hobble right, some less, some more—but we all hobble. But if that’s the price you pay for the joy of playing the game, I don’t mind paying it.”
Dave’s skull
A. His orbital bone was shattered.
B. His nose was broken six times.
C. Jaw broken twice.
D. 250 total stitches (plus about eight concussions.)
8. ERNIE BANKS
Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman, Chicago Cubs (’53–’71).
Imagine the cartilage between your femur and tibia gone, leaving nothing to cushion your bones from grinding against each other every time you bend your knees. Imagine walking with that pain. Imagine running. Now imagine playing 2,528 games without making a peep.
“A writer said I was a 30-year-old athlete with 70-year-old knees,” says Ernie Banks, a.k.a. Mr. Cub. When it comes to career-ending hits, baseball can’t compare to hockey or football. But its ability to erode a player’s body through its 162-game meat grinder is unique. The rigors of playing nearly every game (he missed just 15 in his first seven full seasons) took its toll. Banks regularly had a doctor drain his swollen knees, then went out and played shortstop. “It’s a mental thing,” he says. “I told myself, There’s nothing hurt. I’m fine. I can go out and play.”
But injuries and osteoarthritis diminished his range, forcing Banks to switch to first base in 1962. After hitting 40-plus home runs five times in his first seven full seasons, he failed to top 40 even once in his last 11. Banks plays down the pain but admits, “It got real bad toward the end.” When he belted his 500th homer in 1970, Mr. “Let’s play two” limped around the bases.
It got worse in retirement. He’d ice his knees every night, but simple tasks like getting out of bed took several minutes of delicate movement. “I used to see stairs and just go, God, ow,” says Banks. Running, jumping, or playing ball with his kids was out of the question. “I kept saying, ‘I’m gonna be fine; I’m gonna fight it off.’” He finally gave in last November, trading his old busted knees for artificial rotating-platform knees to put that bone crunching to an end.
At the age of 73, Ernie Banks finally has the knees of a 30-year-old.
Ernie’s knees
A. The end of his femur and tibia were covered with metal components.
B. Between them went a polyethelene insert and a new kneecap.
C. And then there’s the other knee…
Abuse Meter
# Getting hit in the face with a slap shot—a frozen rubber puck traveling at over 100 mph— is like having half a brick dropped on your head from a height of about 300 feet.
# Twice a game football players take a hit to the head at 120 times the force of gravity. That’s the equivalent of absorbing a serious car crash with your skull.
# Going all 12 rounds in a an average heavyweight boxing match is the equivalent of getting hit in the head with a two-by-four more than 180 times.
# A single knockout punch has more explosive energy than an armor-piercing bullet—enough to lift 1,000 pounds a foot off the ground.
# Even a routine football collision is akin to running full speed into a wall. For many players that type of collision happens every play, meaning running into 60 walls per game.
# A 95 mph fastball takes .39 seconds to get from Randy Johnson’s hand to your head, meaning you have .2 seconds to decide to swing or duck before your eye socket is crushed. Unfortunately, it takes .3 seconds to blink.
Wimpy Warriors
Not everyone gives their all on the field. If sports are a war, these guys belong to the pussy brigade!
Sammy Sosa
In 2004 Sosa wound up on the 15-day disabled list with a back injury. What triggered it? A home plate collision? Beating out an infield single? No, something far more brutal: a sneeze. “It would have been better if I had run into the wall or had a fight with somebody,” Sosa said. Couldn’t agree more, Mr. Sosa. Gesundheit!
Terry Glenn
You know you’re not much of a tough guy when Bill Parcells publicly refers to you as “she.” Glenn lived up to this nickname by going AWOL from the Patriots and suing the NFL, claiming chronic depression prevented him from following the league’s substance abuse policy.
Jose Cardenal
We’ll ignore the fact that Pete Rose accused Cardenal of corking bats (Charlie Hustle’s such a stickler for rules!), but not what happened in a hotel in 1972. That night, Cardenal was kept up by crickets. Claiming he didn’t sleep, he skipped the next game due to exhaustion.
Lionel Simmons
This Sacramento King was the incredible shrinking man with a scoring average that dropped in all but one of his seven seasons (final year: 3.4 ppg). Simmons even missed two games in 1991 with a bout of wrist tendonitis… from playing his Game Boy too much.
Ryan Leaf
The guy the Colts almost selected instead of Peyton Manning, Leaf missed 39 games in just four seasons, some due to a wrist injury that still allowed him to golf. Junior Seau said, “Football is not made for everybody.” Leaf was built for cheerleading.
Willing And Disabled
These guys came to play even when all their limbs didn’t.
Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown
He should have been called “Two Finger” Brown, because that’s how many digits were still intact on his pitching hand. He lost half his index finger in a corn shredder, then broke two more (which healed twisted) while chasing a hog. But he threw an incredible curve by spinning the ball off his stub and made the Hall of Fame.
Tom Dempsey
Born without a right hand and no toes on his kicking foot, Tom decided to become a kicker in the NFL. Using a special shoe, he booted a 63-yard field goal, the longest in history.
Bill Schindler
He was a good racecar driver until an accident cost him his left leg. Then he became a great one. He went on to win 53 major races two years in a row and earned the prestigious racing title “King Doodlebug.” Ah, to be royalty!
Willie O’Ree
As if being the NHL’s first black player was not tough enough, O’Ree did it with one working eye. Hit with a puck in the right peeper, he endured not only racist opponents but constant checking due to his massive blind spot.
Jim Abbott
The only man to throw a no-hitter one-handed. Born with a stub for a right hand, Abbott rested his glove on the stub while he pitched, quickly switched it to his left hand to field, then removed the glove again to throw.
There’s a price for sports greatness, measured in a lifetime of pain. Eight veteran athletes tell you what it’s like.
Maxim, Dec 2004
By John U. Bacon, Charles Coxe, Sean Cunningham, and Steve Mazzucchi
1. PATRICK EWING
Center for the New York Knicks (’85–’00), Seattle Supersonics (’00–’01), Orlando Magic (’01–’02). Now assistant coach of the Houston Rockets.
“My first surgery was my first season in the NBA,” recounts Hall of Fame shoo-in Patrick Ewing. Unfortunately, it would become a theme. Over an amazing 17-year career during which he averaged 21 points per game, Ewing reached the NBA Finals twice—but returned to the operating table far more frequently.
“I had about six knee surgeries and one wrist surgery,” Ewing says. The operation on his wrist actually required the longest recovery time: eight months. “It was excruciating,” the stoic Ewing finally admits after prodding. Only two years removed from the court, Ewing still hasn’t shaken the unwritten code dictating that athletes don’t really talk about being hurt. But he’ll acknowledge there were times he had to force himself out on the court when he probably shouldn’t have, notably the 1999 playoffs. “Those games against Indiana, where I played on one Achilles…” he trails off, cringing slightly with the memory. He’d learn the precise diagnosis later: His left Achilles tendon, connecting his calf muscle to his heel, was torn. All he knew at the time was it hurt like hell, but this was the playoffs, and games needed to be won.
“I limped, hipped, and hopped,” Ewing laughs, remembering how he tried to avoid aggravating the injury.
“When I tore it, I felt it pop,” he says. “But I didn’t know what it was. So I kept playing.” He only went to the bench when the tear was confirmed, to avoid a crippling full rupture. As a result, he missed the finals against the San Antonio Spurs, and the Knicks lost. Ewing feels he could have lasted another year or two in the league, but he’d had enough.
“I guess I lost the spark,” he says. He’d grown tired of battling in the paint with Shaquille O’Neal (“Play against a guy like Shaq, your body’s going to be sore the next day,” he admits) and the continuous physical damage, such as broken fingers, that required surgery and screwed with his jump shot. During his last season, he averaged only six points a game.
Now an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets, Ewing has no desire to play pro basketball again, although he downplays the impact his injuries have had on him. “When you play sports,” he says, “you learn there’s some pain you have to deal with. That’s the game.”
Patrick’s ankle
A. Ewing felt a pop in his Achilles tendon in the ’99 playoffs, but kept playing…
B. …until docs confirmed it was torn.
2. EDDIE GEORGE
Running back, Houston/Tennessee (’96–’03), Dallas (present).
On Sunday, Eddie George is one of the most powerful men on Earth.
On Monday and Tuesday, he can’t walk.
“When you try to get out of bed on Monday, your whole body hurts,” he says. “It goes from your neck to your shoulders, your ribs, your thighs, your calves, all the way to your toes.”
George isn’t too concerned about the future, with one exception: his shoulders. He’s trying not to show it, but George’s shoulders are killing him. “Any football player is going to expect to have long-term soreness in his shoulders,” he protests, but George has trouble sleeping. “It’s constant, man, not something that goes away.” His abused joints, tendons, and ligaments have already transformed the perennial all-pro to a supporting player at the ripe old age of 31.
“The hardest part is getting ready for the season,” he says. “The older you get, the earlier you have to start. You can’t take four months off and expect to be OK. You can’t allow scar tissue to build up. The fans see the fun parts—the big plays, dancing in the end zone—but the average fan has no idea the amount of preparation required to go from being unable to walk on Monday and Tuesday to practicing full speed on Thursday. The physical toll, the emotional toll, the mental toll…it’s very demanding.”
But is it worth it? “Definitely. I’ve fulfilled a dream,” George says, then smiles. “But maybe I won’t be saying that on the operating table!”
Eddie’s shoulder
A. 2004 playoffs: Making a tackle after an interception, George separated his shoulder.
B. Despite strained ligaments, he popped it back in and returned to the game.
3.TED LINDSAY
Hall of Fame left winger, Detroit (’44–’57, ’64–’65), Chicago (’57–’60).
They call Ted Lindsay Scarface, and he’s earned the name: No athlete has ever taken more stitches—over 500 in his head alone, he claims. “You get some cocoa butter and vitamin E oil and you can rub a lot of those scars away,” Lindsay laughs. “In fact, I'm better-looking now than I was back then…which ain’t very good!”
In junior hockey, a couple of Toronto scouts came to see Lindsay play, but he’d already gone to the hospital: An opponent’s skate blade had sliced through his calf muscle, leaving him writhing on the ice in a pool of blood. The scouts signed his teammate instead, so Lindsay joined the Detroit Red Wings, where he played with Sid Abel and Gordie Howe and won four Stanley Cups in six years. “That injury changed my whole life,” he says, “and I’m not complaining.”
Although a perennial all-star (11 times) and top-10 scorer (eight times), “all anybody ever talks about is the fighting,” admits the man opponents called Terrible Ted. One of the toughest players in NHL history, the 5'8", 160-pound Lindsay collected 1,808 penalty minutes over his career. “I was hitting everybody and getting hit by everybody and fighting everybody, and everybody was fighting me,” Lindsay says.
In a game in the 1952–53 season, Lindsay broke his foot: “It was just a fracture; luckily everything was still in place.” But with the playoffs starting, he wasn’t about to sit. “I put my skate on, and that was my splint,” Lindsay explains. “I got over the pain during warmups. Once my system got going, I kind of forgot about it. Didn't feel much pain again till after the game when I was trying to take the damn skate off.”
Until recently, Lindsay still played in old-timer’s games, slamming opponents into the boards at age 77. “I just hung ’em up two years ago,” Lindsay says. “I had surgery on my back and they put in a metal plate. If I can’t body check, why skate? It was a wonderful, wonderful life…and the damn thing was too short!”
Ted’s face
A. Over his career Lindsay took more than 500 stitches in his head.
B. His nose has been broken so frequently that the cartilage is gone.
# Head Shot
One time Lindsay was clobbered over the head by Montreal defenseman Butch Bouchard. “He didn’t mean it,”says Lindsay. “I was pivoting along the boards, very low. Butch swung his stick and got me just over the left ear. No stitches, no concussion—I’ve got too thick a skull!” But it was enough to put him in the hospital.
# The Kindest Cut
“I’d already taken 12 or 14 stitches under my right eye,” Lindsay tells us. “We were playing in Boston, and I made the mistake of getting the stitches out before the game. I got hit with an elbow under the same eye and opened it up all over again. I can’t remember who it was, but it was a good elbow.”
# A Nose For Hockey
Lindsay’s nose has been broken so many times from “a lot of sticks, a lot of pucks, and some pretty good fists,” that there’s no cartilage left. “I only hope I gave more than I took. I believe I kept the ledger pretty even,” he says. “I never intentionally cut anyone, but I did everything I could to help us win.”
# A Broken Glass Smile
A hockey player doesn’t leave the game—he has the trainer stitch him up on the bench so he can get back on the ice. No anesthetic. “It never hurt because your face was still numb from taking the punch, so you could take the needle,” Lindsay says. “A few stitches and nature takes care of the rest.”
4. STEVE YZERMAN
Center and captain of the Detroit Red Wings (1983–present).
It’s a beautiful day. You step outside to enjoy the sun and a day of mowing the lawn, going for a run, maybe playing a little basketball.
Simple, right? Not for Steve Yzerman. The 21-year NHL veteran has to wear sunglasses whenever he goes outside—daylight still burns, the result of a slap shot that hit him in the face last spring, smashing his orbital bone. Running and basketball are also out of the question, since Yzerman obliterated his right knee against a goal post in 1988. After five operations, all the cartilage in his knee is gone. If he plays soccer with his daughters, he kicks with his left foot to keep the bones in his right knee from grinding against each other. When he goes to bed at night, he sleeps on his side and rests his head on a special pillow designed to help relieve the constant pain in his neck since he herniated a disc lifting weights a decade ago. (He suffered repeated “stingers” before doctors removed the ruined disc entirely and fused the remaining vertebrae together.)
And that’s just the off-season.
“This hurts, that hurts,” Yzerman says, dismissing his maladies. “I probably feel a lot older than I am, but it’s just a matter of dealing with aggravating, nagging things. You’re used to dealing with daily pain, so it’s not really a big deal.”
His eyesight is improving, but Yzerman’s knee and neck will continue crumbling for the rest of his life. Somehow he’s found a bright side. “Skating is not a high-impact activity for knees. If I played a sport that involved running, I’d have been done at least five years ago. If I take care of myself, when I retire I’ll still be able to do everything I want to do: snow-ski, water-ski, golf. I was a lousy golfer before my injuries, and now I’m still lousy. You have to grit your teeth and bear it. At the end of the day, it’ll all be worth it.”
Steve’s knee
A. His ruptured posterior cruciate ligament was never repaired.
B. His knee has no cartilage.
C. In 2002 docs sawed through Yzerman’s tibia and inserted a wedge to realign the joint.
5. TRAVIS PASTRANA
Twenty-one-year-old undefeated X-Games motocross champion.
Travis Pastrana, ESPN’s 2001 Motocross Rider of the Year, loves his sport—a sport that gives him such a thrill that his virtually comatose pulse rate of 36 beats per minute skyrockets to 195 when he’s trying to manhandle a 220-pound bike. “According to researchers,” he says, “only World Cup soccer requires more conditioning and endurance.”
Yes, but soccer players don’t usually deal with torn rotator cuffs, broken wrists, cracked collar bones, and shattered pelvises. Only 21 years old, Pastrana has already broken “at least” 30 bones—and that doesn’t even include a 1998 accident where he dislocated his sacroiliac joints, separating his pelvis from his spine—but it’s the multiple concussions that concern him the most. Pastrana’s already suffered 12 “decent ones” that put him out cold. He once blacked out during a race and, still unconscious, plowed his bike into the Daytona stands at 50 mph. “That didn’t work out so well,” he observes.
Pastrana loves motocross so much, he’ll do anything to get back on his bike, including having a doctor pin his broken wrist together so he could wrap it around the handle. After nine operations on his left knee and seven on his right, Pastrana has to stick a syringe in his knees and drain the fluid just so he can bend them enough to get his feet into the pegs of his bike for a training lap or two. Imagine doctors sticking a balloon into your knee and filling it up with water until you can’t bend the joint even an inch without feeling like the whole thing is about to explode, and you’ve got some idea of what Pastrana lives with every day.
“I’ve raced with just about every injury you can name,” he says, “but we don’t tell anyone about them because you don’t want your competition to know. Most people don’t understand. If you don’t get on your bike because you can’t bend your knee far enough to get your foot in the peg, the fans will call you a wimp. They say, ‘Oh, if I was paid as much as these guys, I would train for every race.’ That’s great if you’re healthy, but what if your knee is frozen stiff when you wake up and you need a few Advil and a hot tub just to be able to walk?”
“If you’re willing to settle for fifth or 10th place, OK, but I don’t like to lose. And that’s the price you pay.”
Travis’ pelvis
A. A botched jump dislocated his freakin’ spine.
B. His hips have been broken in several places.
6. RON KRAMER
Tight end, Green Bay (’57–’64), Detroit (’65–’67).
“I thought I was beating the hell out of everyone back then,” muses former Packer Ron Kramer. “But now that I look back, I think they might’ve gotten the best of me.”
Lawrence Taylor said when he gets up in the morning, his joints crack so much it sounds like he’s making popcorn. Kramer, the 69-year-old former tight end on Vince Lombardi’s famous Packer sweep, sounds like a firing range. “They say there are, what, 206 bones in the human body?” Kramer asks. “Well, I broke at least 50 of them. Arms, legs, ankles, toes, and more broken fingers than I’ve got fingers—a lot of them just from catching passes.”
That was the easy part. Since retiring Kramer’s had one hip and both knees replaced. He’s undergone three surgeries to repair both rotator cuffs, five knee surgeries, and an operation called a “fusion laminectomy,” he says, “where they fuse the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae together. They chip the bone off the crest of the ilium [the hip], and they fuse the transverse process—part of the vertebrae. I’ve had a couple of those. Now I think I know more than the doctors about this stuff!”
Kramer is still quick on his feet, but only figuratively. His optimism can’t hide the fact that he has to push himself up to a standing position and carries a bag of broken bones with him whenever he shuffles down the hall.
Kramer will have to go under the knife again just to keep going, but despite the wear and tear he echoes the sentiments of of the walking wounded: “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing. Hell, you take a chance in life when you do anything,” he says. “Football was great fun.”
Ron’s spine
A. Docs chipped bone off Kramer’s hip…
B. …and used it to fuse his vertebrae.
7. DAVE SHAND
Journeyman defenseman, Atlanta Flames (’76–’80), Toronto Maple Leafs (’80–’81, ’82–’83), Washington Capitals (’83–’85), assorted minor league teams.
Whenever Dave Shand goes to a new doctor, the receptionist asks him to list his injuries and surgeries. “I start at my toes,” Shand says, “and work my way up.” The list is so long he has to use the back of the form.
“Broke my feet seven times,” he says. “Broke both ankles. Four knee surgeries. Multiple hip pointers. Six or seven broken ribs. Two surgeries on my left elbow. Two surgeries on my right shoulder, including plates that are still in there.
“Then I get to my head. About 250 stitches all told. Broke my nose six times—there’s no bone left in that thing. Broke my jaw twice. Broke my orbital cavity once. Oh, and seven or eight concussions,” he laughs. “I can’t remember exactly how many.”
The doctor invariably asks if Shand’s been in a few car accidents.
“No,” Shand answers. “Just 13 years of pro hockey.”
None of this was part of the big-league dreams of a 19-year-old kid from Cold Lake, Alberta, the first-round pick of the Atlanta (now Calgary) Flames in 1976. But after four years with the Flames, Shand was shipped to Toronto, Washington, and five minor league teams before finishing his career in Austria.
“I was never the number one defenseman on any team,” Shand explains. “So I couldn’t afford to let someone else take my spot. If it was a choice between sitting out a couple of games and healing or taking a needle and playing, I took the needle. In Washington I played with future Hall of Fame defensemen Scott Stevens, Rod Langway, and Larry Murphy. If they got hurt, they sat out a few games. If I sat out, Kevin Hatcher was waiting to take my spot. I knew how good he was, and I just couldn’t give them an excuse to take me out of the lineup.”
In 1989 Shand couldn’t stomach another summer of gut-wrenching conditioning sessions and hung up his skates. Although his hockey paychecks stopped coming in years ago—at his peak he made about $100,000 a year—Shand’s body is still paying the price: “Cortisone shots corrode your joints,” Shand says. “So now I’m 48 and I have to have two hip replacements in the next two years. And I don’t think I’m done, either.”
Shand describes his hips as a “nonstop toothache. You feel it all the time, but there’s nothing you can do about it.” He takes three Vicodins each night before bed, lies on his side with a heating pad on his right hip and three pillows between his legs, and still only manages three or four hours of sleep most nights. (As for sex, Shand says, “Like most former players, you have no choice: You’re on the bottom, and you hope your wife’s enthusiastic.”) When he wakes up he takes a high-strength ibuprofen and a Vioxx (now conveniently recalled) to ease the pain and swelling, then uses a 9-iron as a cane to go down the stairs.
Through all the pain, Shand’s maintained an unshakable sense of humor: “I went to the wedding of another old player’s kid, and it was hilarious. Some guys hobble left, some hobble right, some less, some more—but we all hobble. But if that’s the price you pay for the joy of playing the game, I don’t mind paying it.”
Dave’s skull
A. His orbital bone was shattered.
B. His nose was broken six times.
C. Jaw broken twice.
D. 250 total stitches (plus about eight concussions.)
8. ERNIE BANKS
Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman, Chicago Cubs (’53–’71).
Imagine the cartilage between your femur and tibia gone, leaving nothing to cushion your bones from grinding against each other every time you bend your knees. Imagine walking with that pain. Imagine running. Now imagine playing 2,528 games without making a peep.
“A writer said I was a 30-year-old athlete with 70-year-old knees,” says Ernie Banks, a.k.a. Mr. Cub. When it comes to career-ending hits, baseball can’t compare to hockey or football. But its ability to erode a player’s body through its 162-game meat grinder is unique. The rigors of playing nearly every game (he missed just 15 in his first seven full seasons) took its toll. Banks regularly had a doctor drain his swollen knees, then went out and played shortstop. “It’s a mental thing,” he says. “I told myself, There’s nothing hurt. I’m fine. I can go out and play.”
But injuries and osteoarthritis diminished his range, forcing Banks to switch to first base in 1962. After hitting 40-plus home runs five times in his first seven full seasons, he failed to top 40 even once in his last 11. Banks plays down the pain but admits, “It got real bad toward the end.” When he belted his 500th homer in 1970, Mr. “Let’s play two” limped around the bases.
It got worse in retirement. He’d ice his knees every night, but simple tasks like getting out of bed took several minutes of delicate movement. “I used to see stairs and just go, God, ow,” says Banks. Running, jumping, or playing ball with his kids was out of the question. “I kept saying, ‘I’m gonna be fine; I’m gonna fight it off.’” He finally gave in last November, trading his old busted knees for artificial rotating-platform knees to put that bone crunching to an end.
At the age of 73, Ernie Banks finally has the knees of a 30-year-old.
Ernie’s knees
A. The end of his femur and tibia were covered with metal components.
B. Between them went a polyethelene insert and a new kneecap.
C. And then there’s the other knee…
Abuse Meter
# Getting hit in the face with a slap shot—a frozen rubber puck traveling at over 100 mph— is like having half a brick dropped on your head from a height of about 300 feet.
# Twice a game football players take a hit to the head at 120 times the force of gravity. That’s the equivalent of absorbing a serious car crash with your skull.
# Going all 12 rounds in a an average heavyweight boxing match is the equivalent of getting hit in the head with a two-by-four more than 180 times.
# A single knockout punch has more explosive energy than an armor-piercing bullet—enough to lift 1,000 pounds a foot off the ground.
# Even a routine football collision is akin to running full speed into a wall. For many players that type of collision happens every play, meaning running into 60 walls per game.
# A 95 mph fastball takes .39 seconds to get from Randy Johnson’s hand to your head, meaning you have .2 seconds to decide to swing or duck before your eye socket is crushed. Unfortunately, it takes .3 seconds to blink.
Wimpy Warriors
Not everyone gives their all on the field. If sports are a war, these guys belong to the pussy brigade!
Sammy Sosa
In 2004 Sosa wound up on the 15-day disabled list with a back injury. What triggered it? A home plate collision? Beating out an infield single? No, something far more brutal: a sneeze. “It would have been better if I had run into the wall or had a fight with somebody,” Sosa said. Couldn’t agree more, Mr. Sosa. Gesundheit!
Terry Glenn
You know you’re not much of a tough guy when Bill Parcells publicly refers to you as “she.” Glenn lived up to this nickname by going AWOL from the Patriots and suing the NFL, claiming chronic depression prevented him from following the league’s substance abuse policy.
Jose Cardenal
We’ll ignore the fact that Pete Rose accused Cardenal of corking bats (Charlie Hustle’s such a stickler for rules!), but not what happened in a hotel in 1972. That night, Cardenal was kept up by crickets. Claiming he didn’t sleep, he skipped the next game due to exhaustion.
Lionel Simmons
This Sacramento King was the incredible shrinking man with a scoring average that dropped in all but one of his seven seasons (final year: 3.4 ppg). Simmons even missed two games in 1991 with a bout of wrist tendonitis… from playing his Game Boy too much.
Ryan Leaf
The guy the Colts almost selected instead of Peyton Manning, Leaf missed 39 games in just four seasons, some due to a wrist injury that still allowed him to golf. Junior Seau said, “Football is not made for everybody.” Leaf was built for cheerleading.
Willing And Disabled
These guys came to play even when all their limbs didn’t.
Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown
He should have been called “Two Finger” Brown, because that’s how many digits were still intact on his pitching hand. He lost half his index finger in a corn shredder, then broke two more (which healed twisted) while chasing a hog. But he threw an incredible curve by spinning the ball off his stub and made the Hall of Fame.
Tom Dempsey
Born without a right hand and no toes on his kicking foot, Tom decided to become a kicker in the NFL. Using a special shoe, he booted a 63-yard field goal, the longest in history.
Bill Schindler
He was a good racecar driver until an accident cost him his left leg. Then he became a great one. He went on to win 53 major races two years in a row and earned the prestigious racing title “King Doodlebug.” Ah, to be royalty!
Willie O’Ree
As if being the NHL’s first black player was not tough enough, O’Ree did it with one working eye. Hit with a puck in the right peeper, he endured not only racist opponents but constant checking due to his massive blind spot.
Jim Abbott
The only man to throw a no-hitter one-handed. Born with a stub for a right hand, Abbott rested his glove on the stub while he pitched, quickly switched it to his left hand to field, then removed the glove again to throw.
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