D Ortiz sent home with irregular heartbeat

Hope he's okay...being a little cynical, would they send him back to Boston now if the Sox were still in hot contention?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2564608

 

When I heard about this last night, the first thing that came to mind was Reggie Lewis.

I think Boston would have sent him home if they were in New York and playing for first place in the division.

 

Well, he went to the hospital with the irregular heartbeat during the series against the Yankees and still played every game. For all their quotes about not messing with the man's life, they sure were willing to when the Yanks were in town.

 

Before I start, in the interests of full disclosure I should say that I am a stark, raving Yankees fan.

You know, if you took a regular person, put them in a stressful job, gave them a schedule where they had to travel a lot over a short period of time, never staying anywhere for a full week, and then they appeared overweight, you would have to think there would be an increased chance something like this would happen. Maybe the amazing thing is that it doesn't happen more often - yes, players are usually in top physical shape and probably eat better than most frequent travellers, but it is amazing.

Somebody pointed out about 15 years ago how there were fewer people on the baseball beat for more than 10 or 15 years, and that long-time baseball beat writers were becoming rarer. Part of that is that newspaper close or have more limited coverage, part of it is that the travel is more frequent, but some of it has to be the wear of traveling over a long season - I think the NFL is the one sport which doesn't have this problem.

 

Maybe they went with the thought that the first time is a fluke, the second time is a trend?

 

Is Don Johnson his doctor? After all, he's still looking for a Heartbeat.