I trust the athlete and the organization

A few years ago I used to get worked up about possible injuries. ?Take this guy out.? ?Don?t play him today.? ?There is something wrong with this guy.? ?It?s clear to me that his arm is hurt.? I could go on, but I won?t bore you. Suffice to say I acted as I knew more about the injury than the player or the organization. This is wrong. It?s taken me some time to finally realize this. Most of you who began reading this site in the past year know that I no longer get too worked up about that kind of thing. Players are going to get injured and while we can certainly make decisions that may reduce the chance of injury, even those decisions reduce the chance by only a small amount. In the end, nothing is truer than ?players just get injured.? It?s what they do. That, and play their sport at a high level when they are not injured. I think many Cubs fans are still of the belief that every player is more injured than is let on and they spend oodles of time worrying about something they literally know nothing about. Cubs fans hear about a possible injury and they begin to act as if the world is ending. Over the last few years only the brief time in 2008 when Kerry Wood was mostly healthy and Mark Prior was gone did Cubs fans not worry a ridiculous amount about things they cannot control. Then came Rich Harden. Now we?re back to the same old story every single day. He?s injured. No he?s not. Cubs say he?s fine. Rich says he?s strong. I don?t believe them. They shouldn?t start him until October. His arm is going to fall off and the Cubs will lose 97 games as a result. If Rich Harden goes out, what happens when Carlos Zambrano gets injured because we all know he will based on his injury history? What then happens if Ramirez, Lee, Bradley, and Soriano all get hurt? Season over. And what about 2010 when these guys are all a year older? It?s do or die time, folks, and we have to count on the injury plagued arms of Rich Harden and Carlos Zambrano along with possible injuries to every other player on the roster. I don?t see how we win 40 games this year. It?s so ridiculous I can?t bring myself to having one bit of interest in that kind of nonsense anymore. Here?s all you need to know: players will get injured and when they do your team will be worse. Mike Imrem of the Daily Herald writes a pretty good piece on this: Hey, it?s not my pain, so I trust the athlete. I was happy to see this. There?s only one tidbit that is Cubs related (Milton Bradley), but the point of the article was that we don?t know what?s going on. Since we don?t, why say things are in someone?s head or worry about catastrophic losses due to injury on your favorite team? I don?t know the odds here, but i?m betting the odds of the team plane crashing aren?t much less than they are of the Cubs losing 4 or 5 of their regulars at the same time for a large part of the season, but many Cubs fans want to know what the Cubs will do if that happens. If that happens, they?re going to lose more games than they would have won if those players were healthy. This isn?t a difficult concept. Let?s face it, sports fans and sports teams expect a player to play, especially in a season when he?s being paid $9 million. Leave it all on the court, fella, and ?all? includes your leg or whatever body part is in question. We?d play for the Bulls for free, you know. You owe us. Poppypoop. My policy on this issue is uncomplicated: An athlete is too hurt to play if he says he?s too hurt to play. Imrem makes a strong point here. I think he?s right about this probably having more to do with the average joe wanting these guys to play because they would do it for free. It?s easy to cast doubt on another?s injury. For some people it?s probably easier to do that than accept the alternative. I?m taking Imrem?s policy one step further. I?m going to trust the organization as well. Why? Well, it?s not because I think these people are honest. It?s because there?s no point in doing anything else. No, I?m not going to trust the organization about everything, but when it comes to injured players I am going to take what they say and move on. I am going to trust that the players are injured, or healthy, and that what they say is correct if only it will save me some headaches of trying to figure out what these guys are thinking which is an impossible task. So when it comes to injuries, I trust the athlete and the organization. They know more than we do at every step. As a result, disbelieving them is silly.