Injury is a constant threat to athletes of any age. A stalker that can strike at any moment.
Think of a Little Leaguer with a sore arm. A high school running back with a sprained ankle. A college women’s soccer player with a torn ACL. A Major League pitcher requiring Tommy John surgery. A marathoner with painful shin splints. A football lineman in concussion protocol. A pickleballer with a strained lower back.
Now, think of Boston big man Kristaps Porzingis, a key to the Celtics’ NBA best 64-18 regular-season record. He merely took a step against the Miami Heat in the second quarter Monday night, grimaced in pain and then hobbled off the court with a strained soleus. Soleus? It’s one of three separate muscles we call the calf. You never think about your soleus until you can’t walk or run.
Alarm bells clanged in Celtics Nation. How can they go all the way for that 18th championship banner without Porzingis in the middle? Not to worry. An MRI Tuesday revealed no damage to his Achilles tendon. Still, a strained soleus is a nuisance that can take three weeks to heal. I speak from experience.
Porzingis will sit for the start of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Celtics should be okay without him, but the road to the NBA Finals will be smoother if he is ready.
Porzingis has plenty of company among the NBA injured this spring. Even with access to the finest training, medical and nutritional care, many stars are watching from the sideline, just as we are.
Forward Jimmy Butler, hero of Miami’s upset of the Celtics in 2023, missed the series this spring with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee. Heat guard Terry Rozier missed the last three weeks of April because of neck spasms.
Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo was out for three weeks with a strained soleus in his right calf. Damian Billiard of the Bucks missed Game 4 of the Indiana series with tendinitis in his right Achilles.
New Orleans forward Zion Williamson strained his left hamstring during a play-in game and did not appear in the Pelicans’ first-round elimination by Oklahoma City. An inflamed right knee has hampered L.A. Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard and cost him a game in the Dallas series. Joel Embiid has been in and out of the Philadelphia lineup thanks to a left knee injury. He was also diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a condition that affects his facial muscles.
Injuries. In an instant they can disrupt a game, a season, a series or in an extreme case, a career.
THE RED SOX ARE HURTING BUT WINNING
Injuries have hit the Red Sox hard this spring. Eleven players have suffered significant injuries. Somehow the Sox are still winning. Go figure. Here is the medical report, courtesy of MLB.com.
Lucas Giolito, signed as a free agent in January, pitched 4 1/3 innings in spring training, had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in March and is gone for the season. Reliever Chris Murphy had surgery on his left elbow and is out until 2025. Liam Hendricks, another reliever, is coming back from Tommy John and may pitch this summer.
Garrett Whitlock made four starts, was 1-0 with a 1.96 ERA but suffered a strained oblique and may return this month. Right hander Bryan Mata is still nursing a strained right hamstring. Reliever Isaiah Campbell has right shoulder impingement that limits him to playing catch.
Starter Brayan Bello, so impressive in the season opener, is recovering from a strained right latissimus dorsi and may return next week. Nick Pivetta, also impressive early, went on the injured list with a strained right elbow. He was scheduled to make a rehab start for Worcester yesterday and could return to the rotation next week.
Shortstop Trevor Story, plagued by injuries most of his career, dislocated his left shoulder diving for a ground ball on April 5 and had surgery a week later. He is out for the season. First baseman Triston Casas has torn cartilage in his left rib cage and is sidelined at least until the third week of June. Second baseman Vaughn Grissom, acquired last December in the trade that sent Chris Sale to Atlanta, has been slowed all spring by a hamstring strain. He could make his Red Sox debut this weekend in Minnesota.
Despite all that the Red Sox were 18-13 at midweek, only 1.5 games behind first-place Baltimore and second-place New York in the AL East. They had won 7 of their last 10.
Go figure.
FAREWELL, BOB FOLEY
Condolences to the family of Bob Foley, the former Providence College women’s basketball coach who died Monday in Richmond, Va. He was 72 and had leukemia, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Foley coached the PC women to prominence during his 11 seasons, starting in 1985-86. His teams won 206 games and a Big East championship and played in five NCAA tournaments. He was the Big East coach of the year in 1986. He and eight of his players are in the PC Athletics Hall of Fame.
Foley left Providence for the University of Richmond for six seasons. He left college coaching to establish a successful youth basketball program in the Richmond area.
Foley is survived by his wife Louise and four children.
FAREWELL, MIKE GORMAN AND JACK EDWARDS
Warm retirement wishes to a pair of Boston sportscasters who can boast they logged air time in Providence when they were young men on the way up.
Mike Gorman, the TV voice of the Boston Celtics for 43 years, called his last game for NBC Sports Boston Wednesday night when the Celtics eliminated Miami from the first round of the NBA playoffs. His career spanned the decades from the Big Three of Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale in the 1980s to the Big Two of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown now — and coaches from Bill Fitch and K.C. Jones to Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzulla.
Gorman, 76, always remained calm when his partner of 39 years, the irrepressible Tommy Heinsohn, launched one of his frequent tirades against officials or opposing players. Gorman was the antithesis of the many screamers on air today.
A son of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood and alum of Boston State, Gorman was a familiar face and voice in Rhode Island 40-plus years ago. He was a sports anchor at Channel 12, called URI basketball on WPRO radio, and announced Providence College and Big East basketball games on television.
Jack Edwards, the familiar voice of the Boston Bruins on NESN, is stepping back from his microphone after 19 seasons high above the ice at TD Garden. He is suffering from an undiagnosed ailment that is causing slow and slurred speech.
Few play-by-play announcers could match the enthusiasm Edwards, 67, brought to his call. He always sounded as if there were no place he would rather be than standing beside his color man Andy Brickley describing the action below.
Edwards called University of New Hampshire hockey games while a student there and worked in radio and television in Manchester before serving as weekend sports anchor for Channel 10 in Providence in the early ‘80s.