Stupid pet tricks

Or: Your Stupid Baseball Player Injury for today.

Some force in the cosmos seems to dictate that professional baseball players -- highly paid athletes capable of physical feats the rest of us only dream about -- hurt themselves in bizarre ways the rest of us, well, only dream about. If you fall in your driveway shoveling snow, for instance, you only get your clothes wet. But if former MLB pitcher Carl Pavano falls in his driveway shoveling snow ...

Well. A few years back, he did. And somehow hurt himself badly enough he had to have his spleen removed and nearly died.

He's hardly the only example. Professional baseball players have sliced tendons opening videos, messed up their backs stepping in gopher holes while running backward, scorched their faces in tanning beds, dislocated thumbs while putting on socks and wrenched knees falling off bikes/treadmills/down stairs.

To that proud lineage, we can now add this: Broke an ankle while running away from a wild boar.

That's what happened to the Mets' Yoenis Cepedes, who caught the boar in one of several traps he sets up around his ranch to keep them away from people. While letting the boar loose, it apparently charged him, causing Cespedes to step in a hole and fracture his ankle.

Boar 1, Outfielder 0.

And one more reason why Major League Baseball should never have an offseason. Unlike the boar, these guys just can't be trusted in the wild.