Strange Baseball Injuries

• Charlie Hough broke his pinky finger while shaking hands.

• Mickey Tettleton went on the DL with a severe case of athlete's foot - caused by tying his shoes too tight.

• Jose Cardenal missed a game in 1972 because he was kept awake all night by crickets chirping in his hotel room.

• Jose Cardenal missed a game in 1974, because he couldn't blink. He swore his eyes were stuck open.

• Bob Feller scalded himself with 200-degree water after he lost control of the hose in a whirlpool. He scalded himself from the waste down, and couldn't do anything for a week.

• Russ Davis missed a game after he slept wrong and awoke with a sore shoulder.

• David Cone missed a start after getting bit by his mother-in-law's dog, a Jack Russell Terrier.

• Sammy Sosa missed a game after sleeping wrong on his shoulder.

• Jim Corsi slipped coming out of the shower and sprained his wrist. Corsi has poor eyesight, wasn't wearing contacts, and misjudged his step.

• Bob Stanley missed a couple of games slipping down the stairs while taking out the trash.

• Ken Griffey Jr. got a sore back lifting boxes.

• Carlos Perez broke his nose in a car accident....as he was trying to pass the team bus.

• Brian Anderson suffered nerve damage in his elbow after a cab ride.

• Tony Gwynn missed a couple of games after he smashed his thumb in the door of his luxury car. While going to the bank.

• Rickey Henderson missed several games because of frost- bite. In August.

• Vince Coleman missed the 1985 World Series when he got rolled up in the tarp machine.

• Pascual Perez missed a start in Atlanta when he circled the city for more than two hours searching for the exit ramp from Highway 285 to Fulton County Stadium.

• Kevin Mitchell strained a muscle while vomiting.

• Twins farmhand David Foster was knocked out for the season when a lightning strike through a phone line zapped him while he was making a call.

• Pitcher Steve Foster injured his shoulder knocking over milk bottles during a segment with Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show."

• Wade Boggs missed several games after straining his back while pulling on his cowboy boots.

• Paul Molitor dislocated a knuckle when it got stuck in another player's glove.

• Milwaukee's Dave Nilsson missed part of this season with Ross River Fever, a mosquito-borne virus that annually affects 200 out of Australia's 17 million residents.

• Twins general manager Terry Ryan required dozens of stitches when he was scouting a game and a bat flew out of the hitter's hands, sailed through a space in the backstop and struck him in the forehead.

• Pitcher Jeff Juden had a start early in the 1994 season pushed back after getting an infection from a tattoo.

• Outfielder Bret Barberie missed a game when he accidentally rubbed chili juice in his eye.

• Ken Griffey Jr. missed a game after his protective cup slipped and pinched a testicle.

• Doc Gooden missed a start when Coleman accidentally hit him with a golf club in the Mets' clubhouse.

• Mark Portugal missed a start because of food poisoning from eating bad mahi-mahi.

• Pitcher Steve Sparks dislocated his shoulder while tearing a phone book in half, as he was trying to emulate a motivational speaker.

• Reliever Larry Anderson strained a rib muscle getting out of a Jucuzzi.

• Pitcher Ted Power pulled a hamstring jumping off the bullpen bench to join a brawl.

• Kent Hrbek missed the final 10 games of the 1990 season when he sprained an ankle while wrestling with a clubhouse attendant.

• Florida's Randy Veres hurt his hand pounding on a hotelroom wall trying to get the people in the next room to quiet down.

• Dennis Martinez injured his arm tossing his luggage onto the team bus. He was diagnosed with Samsonitis.

• Chris Brown missed a game with a strained eyelid after sleeping on an eye a funny way.

• Former Seattle shortstop Rey Quinones was unavailable as a pinch-hitter because he was in the clubhouse playing Nintendo.

• Terry Harper (Atlanta, OF) injured his shoulder after giving another player a high five.

• Greg Harris (Texas, pitcher) injured his shoulder trying to flick sunflower seeds into the stands from the bullpen.

• Baltimore's Mark Smith was hurt when he stuck his hand in an air conditioner to see why it wasn't working properly.

• Glenallen Hill missed a few games after falling out of his bed while having an arachnophobic dream about spiders. He dreamt that spiders were devouring him, jumped off his bed, fell through a glass table, and crawled through the shards of glass.