Dodgers Pitcher Joe Kelly Threw His Back Out While Boiling Crawfish For 5 Hours

Carl 3/8/2019 8:25 PM

LA TIMES – From the ever-expanding collection of strange ballplayer injuries: Joe Kelly hurt himself cooking. Kelly said he threw a Cajun fest for some of his teammates: chicken, red beans and rice, and crawfish. He said his back tightened up on him as he spent five hours minding the boiling crawfish.

“He was cooking some Cajun food,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I guess he was standing a little longer than he wanted to. That’s what he told me.”

The Dodgers scratched Kelly from his scheduled appearance Wednesday night because of the injury. In December, the team signed him to a three-year, $25-million free-agent contract, to be the key setup man for closer Kenley Jansen.

Add it to the list indeed. Baseball players have a knack for dumb injuries and bad-back-from-crawfish-boil really isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Sure it’s weird that a guy who just got $25m is spending 5 hours cooking crustaceans on an off day. Probably not what I would do. At the same time though, baseball players are exceptionally weird and as a result you’re going to get your equally weird injury every now then.

As a Cubs fan I know them all too well. Sammy Sosa threw his back in 2004 while sneezing / doing anabolic steroids. The next year Carlos Zambrano got carpal tunnel surfing the internet. Chris Coghlan (pre-Cubs) blew out his knee celebrating a walk-off dinger. Then there was Rich Harden wrecking a shoulder reaching for an alarm clock because of course he did. It’s Rich Harden.

Think that’s bad? Moises Alou re-tore his ACL running over his son with a bike, which is weirder but not as embarrassing as the time Steve Trout missed a 1985 September start for… wait for it… falling off a stationary bike. Then probably the grand-daddy of them all is Glenallen Hill. He once threw himself through a glass table AND down a flight of stairs while having a nightmare about Spiders. Yes, this guy is afraid of spiders:

Most pressing and memorable though is Brandon Morrow throwing out his back while trying on pants. Hilarious if it happened in February, infuriating in June and of course soul crushing in October when you watch the Cubs finish 162 games tied with the Brewers. I hate to blame a pair of pants but my life would be a lot better if Brandon Morrow stopped wearing them.