Injuries are part of every professional sport and teams know their season records will, in large part, reflect their health throughout the season. But with baseball arm injuries and baseball shoulder injuries the Major League always seems to have the most stars out at any one time. Last season was no exception and the baseball injuries 2008 list devastated some teams and created opportunities for others.

With two small market teams reaching the World Series in 2008, there likely was a backstory that involved some common baseball injuries. Indeed, American League favorites the Detroit Tigers suffered a rash of injuries during 2008 that lead to their lack of postseason success. An almost historic number of injuries plagues the ball club and affected their major stars and pitching rotation so much that their results were a major bust. Their list of injuries included Kenny Rodgers, Jeremy Bonderman, Denny Bautista, Magglio Ordonez and Clete Thomas, who had Tommy John surgery.

Tommy John surgery is now the solution for one of the most common baseball injuries that comes from the repeated stresses of pitching. Baseball arm injuries that require surgery to pitchers are frequent but at the time that pitcher Tommy John needed to replace the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his throwing elbow it was uncharted territory. The doctor took a tendon from his hamstring and replaced the damaged UCL. After the surgery, John was able to pitch again a year later and continued his career for another 15 years. With the lengthening of seasons the stresses of baseball are sending more and more players into this surgery but now they have an 85-90% chance of pitching again. Due to its groundbreaking surgery, Tommy John’s was one of the most famous baseball injuries.

Sammy Sosa is not only well known for his home runs, in his last few seasons he suffered one of the most famous baseball injuries and also one of the freakiest. While being interviewed in the locker room after a game in 2004, Sammy Sosa sneezed. Though routine for everyone, Sosa’s sneeze just happened to pull a ligament in his lower back which landed him on the disabled list for 15 days. More importantly, it may have cause the spiral of injuries that ended his career a few years later.

The most common baseball injuries come from simple overuse and repetition of a muscle or joint. This can lead to tendinitis throughout the arm and surgery depending on which area is affected. Obviously as players get older, the cumulative effect of this repetition gets so great that it often ends careers at early ages. Two pitchers that come to mind are Pedro Martinez, who won three Cy Young awards not too long ago but had to miss a lot of last season and now is looking for work, and Eric Gagne, who dominated the majors with his saves and was a Cy Young award winner. After Tommy John surgery and a back issue, Gagne is currently unemployed at 32 years old, which brings new meaning to his old slogan “Game Over.”

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