Allison Weidner, who missed over half of last season with a knee injury, is expected to miss the entire 2023-24 season with a leg injury suffered in practice.
It may be my imagination, but it seems as though there are more injuries today in all sports.
Greg Zimmerman, UNL '75
Overland Park, Kansas
I am with you on that one. However, I am not sure if there are actually more injuries or more injuries that are publicized. I think it is more that in yesteryear players played through a lot of injuries. Today injuries are made known to the public and players are held out if there is any reasonable reason to do that.
John Papenhagen
In most sports the players are bigger and faster than they were 30 years ago. That puts more strain on their bodies.
Baseball is a prime example. The Tommy John surgery is something that most fastball pitchers wind up having, because the strain of throwing a 100 mile fastball is just too much for their arms.
And news about injuries is disseminated far faster and wider than before the Internet.
I think that is for sure happening. I think what is now seen as a need for Tommy John surgery years a go players just played through it. The advance of sports medicine has made it necessary to keep players out of action rather than see them play through the injury.
That and your last sentence probably is as much as anything that makes it seem like there are more injuries than before.
John Papenhagen
40 years ago I knew a minor league pitcher who blew out his arm in the early 50’s and never made it to the majors, these days he might have been a candidate for rehab surgery. He ran a liquor store in Lincoln for a number of years.
I actually saw Tommy John pitch when he was in the minors with Dubuque, a single-A team. He moved up the ranks quickly, 3 years later he was in the majors. I hope he gets admitted to the Hall of Fame before he dies, unlike Ron Santo who didn’t get in until after his death.
That wouldn’t be Mason Bowes would it? I really had no idea who you were referencing until you said he ran a liquor store in Lincoln, and I still ight not have the right guy.
I ran deliveries to Bowes store about once a week. He chewed me out one time when I didn’t park my truck exactly between the lines in his lot even though I was the only one parked in the lot and was only going to be there five minutes or less.
If it was Bowes, didn’t he pass away in the recent past?
John Papenhagen
Yes, that was Mason Bowes. He passed away in 2011.
I thought probably so. I never really got to know him. I was just the delivery guy that delivered his merchandise. He signed for it and I was on my way.
John Papenhagen