Prior to Saturday’s game against the Oakland Athletics, the New York Yankees placed relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman on the injured list. You may be asking, what caused the injury? Let’s just say it’s something we haven’t seen a lot of.
The Yankees announced that Chapman is on the IL “with an infected wound from a recent tattoo.”
Baseball history is riddled with unusual injuries. Goose Gossage and Sammy Sosa both hurt their backs while sneezing. Brett Barberie stung his eyes when putting in contacts after handling peppers while making nachos. Jeremy Affeldt’s odd injuries probably deserve their own Wikipedia page. But Chapman might have found his own unique place in history with this one.
The bizarre injury drew a confused and hilarious reaction from the MLB world.
… what now? https://t.co/4KmFLqpO0x
— Mario Rossi
(@mariovrossi) August 28, 2022
In all seriousness, infections should not be taken lightly. Going on the injuried list to get that taken care of is the right move.
Having said that, getting a tattoo in the middle of the season is an odd choice. It’s hard to imagine that Chapman couldn’t have simply gotten this tattoo sometime in November, when the season is over.
Amazingly, this isn’t even the first time that Chapman has been involved in an incident stemming from a tattoo. In 2019, Chapman surrendered a home run to José Altuve that clinched the American League Championship Series for the Houston Astros. As Altuve came home, he gestured to his teammates to not rip his jersey off, then gripped his jersey tightly.
When the cheating charges came out later, the speculation was that Altuve didn’t want the jersey to be torn off because it would expose the buzzer he was wearing. Later, Altuve’s then-teammate Carlos Correa said that Altuve didn’t want the jersey torn off because he had an unfinished tattoo.
Perhaps Chapman and Altuve went to the same parlor.
[New York Yankees on Twitter]
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