Collisions, hairdon'ts, and Paralympians: Lunch Trey

Sarah D. Bunting

Crashing into your lunch hour with three sports stories…it's Lunch Trey!

The unfortunate theme emerging from last night's MLB coverage: collisions. First up, a home-plate collision between Pirate 2B Josh Harrison and Cardinal catcher Yadier Molina. Molina left the game with "what was later diagnosed as upper back, shoulder and neck strains" after Harrison gave new meaning to the term "bang-bang play." Molina held on to get the out despite 1) a short-hopped throw from Carlos Beltran and 2) basically getting run over by a train. The play looked clean, although it was incredibly hard (and hard to watch), but that didn't stop the Cardinals from retaliating; Harrison got plunked, and both benches got warned.

Every time there's a hit like this, it prompts a debate about whether running "through" the catcher to score a run should be outlawed. (It was even under discussion for a couple of innings in the Mets booth last night.) The injury to Buster Posey last season, the infamous mugging of Roy Fosse by Pete Rose during the All-Star Game in 1970 that functionally ended Fosse's career (which Fosse is still bitter about) – examples like this make it tough to defend the practice of going in hard. But is that "just the game"?

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Also "just the game": knowing where the wall is. Having watched Jason Bay wreck himself with DL-able results twice in the last two years, I cringed at this footage of Matt Kemp banging into the Colorado outfield wall last night. I admit I also chuckled a little, because Kemp's "[BONK]…crumple to the ground" reaction was straight out of a silent-film sequence. Kemp protested that he could stay in the game, but just one batter later, he seemed a bit slow on the uptake, and Dodger manager Don Mattingly pulled him from the game. He's got a knee contusion, but no concussion symptoms, which is good.

Also scary, but in a different way, are some of the athletes'-hair stories going around. New England Patriots rookies had to attend a kick-off gala with hideous hairdon'ts given to them by team veterans – including monks' tonsures, weird streaks and stars, and even a tic-tac-toe board.


Let's hope the 'dos help as much as a new set of cornrows helps Blue Jays' Colby Rasmus, who changed up his look to improve his batting luck. It didn't take immediately – in his first game with the new style, Rasmus pulled a hat trick, striking out three times – but he's since homered, so maybe it's working.


Do you miss the Olympics already? Good news: the Paralympics start today in London. Stephen Hawking will be helping Queen Elizabeth II open the Games, the largest yet – more than four thousand athletes will compete, including North Korean Paralympians for the first time. Where can you watch in the U.S.? NBC has the broadcast rights, but doesn't plan to air much coverage (none of it live); you may be better off hitting the BBC website and trying to stream the events as they happen.