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ewen21 -> RE: Players and prospects III (9/3/2018 10:48:43 AM)
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I saw red flares for Buxton this year very early on, and in fact, the article I have linked below. A few things struck me right away....
The first thing was how banged up he gets at such a young age. Here is a guy who is supposed to be some uber athlete and here we are at 24 discussing a multitude of injuries and his mindset for playing through them. THe article portrayed him as having ths warrior mindset of playing through ailments and now we want to use injuries as the excuse as to why he played so horribly? Let us not forget he played the first few weeks healthy and he was slumping right out of the gate. Then the sudden change from cold weather to hot weather in Puerto Rico gave him migraines. I guess the migraines ARE too much for him. I guess they ARE serious. I guess he isn't able to play through them. Newsflash: that is life in the big leagues. If you are playing major league baseball in April you are going to go through sudden weather changes. THat is how it is. Also, to feature him in a long article about how he deals with injuries (to me) was nothing more than a warning. EVERY player deals with and plays with injuries. How is he so unique? Brad Radke pitched with a torn labrum, JOhan Santana pitched a complete game in NY with a torn meniscus in his knee, Shannon Stewart played with plantar fascitis, etc...etc...etc...
Quite frankly, when I read this article I immediately showed my text group (Matt can attest) that there was good reason to be concerned about Buxton given his history of migraines and some of the quotes from him in this article. It almost seems as if he wore it as a badge. As if he fancied himself the Bam Magera or Johnny Knoxville of the major leagues. Reading this he immediately reminded me of Aaron Rowand. Very similar kind of mindset and he was useless by the age of 30.
https://www.twincities.com/2018/03/28/twins-star-byron-buxton-takes-pride-in-his-ability-to-play-through-pain/
Byron Buxton was scared.
Already on the disabled list with a groin injury, now the Twins’ uber-talented center fielder was fighting the worst migraine he could remember. This was late last July, and as he sat at his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium, Buxton could barely keep his eyes open.
“”I’ve never fallen asleep in a locker, you know what I mean?” Buxton said in the days leading up to Thursday afternoon’s opener at Baltimore’s Camden Yards. “I was just sitting and my head was hurting, but I didn’t really think about it.”
He got up, went into the trainer’s room and took some Ibuprofen.
“Came back and my head was really hurting now,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘I just took medicine, and it seemed like it got worse. Something ain’t right.’ Every time I felt like I wanted to move, it just seemed like it got worse. So I just stayed as still as possible and before you know it I was out.”
A team doctor prescribed an antidote that Buxton picked up the next day at a Los Angeles-area pharmacy. That helped him with the pain but only sent him deeper into a troubling haze.
“They got me some medicine that was pretty strong,” he said. “It was one of those things where, if I took the pill, I was asleep in like 15 minutes. Every time I felt a migraine coming on, I’d pop one and just go back to sleep. Kind of slept it off, for the most part.”
It took another week before Buxton would return to the lineup on Aug. 1, at home against the San Diego Padres. In the interim, the Twins’ infamously flipped veteran starting pitcher Jaime Garcia and sold off all-star closer Brandon Kintzler by the trade deadline.
Buxton’s uncertain status had to be part of that cold calculation. Then came the stunning resurgence — of Buxton, who hit .298 with 11 home runs and 13 stolen bases over the final two months, and of a Twins team that ripped off a 20-win August and eventually claimed the second American League wild-card spot.
Buxton, who also dodged a bullet with a bruised hamate bone in late August, still gets migraines about once a month, he said, but the stronger medication helps him control their severity.
“It’s just a thing I know I have to put up with,” he said. “When they do come, I just take the medicine, and it just calms it down.”
Hospitalized after a harrowing outfield collision at Double-A New Britain in August 2014, Buxton admittedly wonders if his migraine issues are related to the season-ending concussion he suffered that night.
“It’s possible. It’s very well possible,” he said. “It’s something that I’m never going to rule it out.”
WORST PAIN EVER
Heading into his fourth big-league season and third straight as the Twins’ Opening Day center fielder, Buxton appears poised at age 24 to vault into the game’s stratosphere.
Blessed with all five tools since long before the Twins selected him second overall in the 2012 draft, one spot behind Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, the Georgia-raised Buxton also brandishes a preternatural toughness that both inspires his teammates and frightens his bosses.
Coming off a career-high 140 games played and his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award, he has yet to meet an outfield wall he’s unwilling to hurtle himself into, the latest example coming in the wild-card loss at Yankee Stadium. He made a circus catch at the wall to rob Todd Frazier of extra bases in the second inning of an 8-4 loss, then stayed in for another eight batters defensively before being lifted with what the Twins termed “upper back tightness.”
Buxton, who also stole second and beat out a routine double-play grounder to shortstop before leaving the game, admitted having trouble breathing while conducting postgame interviews.
“You always worry about an injury risk with a guy like that because of the recklessness, but being great sometimes requires some element of recklessness,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “You just hope there’s a little bit of intelligence too. I kind of remember having to learn that concept myself a long time ago. People tell you to back it down, but it’s a hard thing to do.”
Mention this to Felton Buxton, and he offers a knowing smile and a slow nod. That’s exactly how he raised his son to play the game.
“There ain’t no sense in playing ball if he ain’t playing 100 percent,” the elder Buxton said during a visit to Twins spring training in Fort Myers, Fla. “I always told him, ‘If you want to play like they’re playing and you want to get there to the next level, you’re going to do what it takes.’ ”
This no-excuses mind-set has been deeply engrained in the young Twins star since his Little League days back in Baxley, Ga. Buxton proudly recalls the summer of 2003, when he was 9 and made his first traveling all-star team with a broken right thumb.
“My dad was tough,” Buxton said with a smile. “He was like, ‘Do you want to play?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to play.’ He said, ‘Well, if you play, you ain’t gonna go out there and do it 50 percent. If you’re gonna play, you’re gonna go out there and you’re gonna give 100 percent. I don’t care about it being hurt. You can deal with it after the game.’ ”
Felton Buxton, who owned a trucking business in the area, would sit his son down before every game that summer and secure his right thumb in a splint.
“He taped it up real good, and I’d just go play,” Buxton said. “It wasn’t too bad. I played every game. We were good. We went to Madison, Ga., and won state. It was awesome, and I had a broken thumb the whole time.”
At the plate Buxton would leave his right thumb pointed straight up the handle, bunting whenever possible and using his speed to get on base. In the four-man outfield, Buxton managed to throw the ball back in without too much difficulty.
“I played left center and just kind of covered all of that,” he said.
There was, however, one excruciating memory from a diving catch Buxton made in a game at Taliaferro County.
“When I caught it, I rolled onto my broken thumb and I could have literally run to my dad,” he said. “I remember crying in the outfield and thinking, ‘This is the worst pain I’ve ever been in.’ I get back to the dugout, and my dad’s like, ‘I know it’s hurting.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s hurting!’ ”
Felton Buxton asked his 9-year-old son if he wanted to come out of the game. Byron Buxton, through his tears, shook his head no.
“I remember it clear as day,” Buxton said. “I kept telling him no. No matter how bad it hurt, I never wanted to come out. Really I think that’s where my tolerance comes from. He was so hard on me. Not only him, but my mom (Carrie) was too.”
No matter how much success he enjoys, Buxton will never lose touch with the lessons of his youth.
“They knew how important work was,” he said, “so they brought me up the right way to know how to go about my business and put in that hard work to get where I want to go. They made me be more accountable for myself.”
QUESTIONS FOR KAREEM
It’s that same steely resolve that allows Buxton to play through migraines from time to time.
“If you haven’t played with a migraine yet, you don’t know what pain is,” he said. “Think about fly balls. You look up, the first thing you’re going to see is a light. You know what I mean? Before I even see the ball, I’m hurting, you know? But it’s something I’m used to. It doesn’t matter, man.”
That series at Dodger Stadium last July, however, was different. He still marvels at how far he spiraled.
“After the first day, I was like, ‘Hopefully it gets a little better,’ ” he said. “As soon as I got to the field the next day, they told me to go home. I guess you could tell I was bad. I’m having glasses on in the clubhouse because of the lights. It wasn’t professional. That wasn’t me. It wasn’t professional for me to do that.”
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