Pitcher's Injury Reminds Us: Video Games Are Almost As Dangerous As Real Life

By Mike McGann
Posted Tuesday, December 19, 2006

For those about to rock, we salute you. For those about to rock and fire towards home — a warning seems in order. Some guitar-based video games can be hazardous to your health and it seems, your Major League Baseball pitching career.

Last week, the Detroit Tigers announced one their young pitchers, Joel Zumaya, had injured his wrist and hand before the World Series playing the video game Guitar Hero. Zumaya, who pitches as fast as 100 MPH when not laying down screaming, bitchin’ leads, apparently got too into the game on his PlayStation2.

The Tigers’ training staff first realized there was an issue when the young pitcher showed up with injuries much more consistent with playing guitar than pitching. Ironically, a number of Major League pitchers actually play guitar — the six-stringed thing, not a video-game simulation — but few appear to have reported injuries, while one, Barry Zito expects to sign a $100 million contract in the coming weeks. In fact, some would suggest that guitar playing improves finger and hand strength and dexterity, reduces the odds of getting some kind of blisters — and let’s face it, turns average boring, millionaire baseball players into total chick magnets.

Having done both, pitching and guitar playing, the latter somewhat better than the former (I was justly described once as the Yoko Ono of pitching, well before Japanese pitchers were in vogue), I gotta ask: how many hours a day was Zumaya playing PlayStation? Is he the only guy in the American League who’s never heard of strip clubs? And better yet, wouldn’t he be better off learning to play a real guitar? Being good at Guitar Hero is only slightly more impressive than having a power character in World of Warcraft — maybe a plus if you’re looking to score with geeky, introverted guys — which is right there with “lives in Mom’s basement” in terms of coolness.

Although injured, Zumaya didn’t emulate the behavior on the mound (as critics of violent game claim the games cause kids to commit violent acts in the real world) and so far no record exists of the pitcher hauling a Fender Strat out to the mound to drop some major licks to intimidate would-be hitters.

So what important lessons can we learn from such things? That video games are dangerous? To the extent that drinking glasses are dangerous, as a Dodgers’ pitcher was sidelined in the playoffs after being cut by one during a bar fight.

No, obviously, the lesson is to send copies of GuitarHero II (coming out this spring for PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360) to all of the pitchers on the staff of your teams rivals. As a precaution, you might want to send them to all the middle infielders and catchers, too. And we can all pray for an ESPN reality show featuring jocks playing GuitarHero — you know someone in Bristol has probably suggested it already.

And when you think about it, maybe there are worse things than playing Guitar Hero. Baseball players seem to have a knack for finding trouble. It’s pretty clear Corey Lidle won’t be making his next start after crashing his plane into a New York building and it’s obvious that David Wells needs to stay out of diners. And mixing Jose Canceco and fast cars (or fast women, according to the Madonna rumors) always seems to be a bad idea. These kind of things go back to the day when Ed Delahanty, feeling no pain after at least five whiskeys, walked off a railroad bridge near Niagara Falls in 1903.

The way things are going with pro athletes (with the Cincinnati Bengals looking like their own black and orange prison block) maybe we should be happy that Zumaya hasn’t been linked to the serial killings of prostitutes in Atlantic City or England.