Stop butchering my baby!

Today the Yankees announced my favorite most player, Anthony Rizzo, has been placed on the IL. He sustained a concussion on this play ... back on May 28.

Before this collision, he was hitting .304 with 11 home runs in 53 games. Since the collision, his average dropped to .172 and he has hit just one home run. Yankee management insisted he was fine. Yankee fans started booing him (a first in his career). Every day he went out there, did his best with his glove, but struck out over and over and over again.

Finally this week -- after two months -- a neurologist was consulted. Anthony Rizzo has been playing, day in and day out, with a concussion. This is inexcusable.

And it's not even the first time. 

Last year he was having back spasms. How did the New York Yankees respond? With chiropractic adjustments and massage?* No, with an invasive epidural. It went badly, and spinal fluid leaked into his brain, leaving Rizzo with crippling headaches. Read this harrowing tale here.

What the ever-loving fuck?

He's going to be 34 next week. That's old for a ballplayer but young for a man. How dare they be so cavalier with his well being? 

I was very proud of him for meeting the press today. Almost 20 minutes, taking every question tossed his way. Listen to him share what he's been through these past two months, blaming himself for all those bad at-bats.

But this shouldn't have happened to him. Not to any player, but especially not to him. Overshadowed by this collision and botched treatment plan is his Swing for the Fences Auction. In June he raised more than $1 million to help families battling pediatric cancer. In July he sponsored a luau for young patients at the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. And he took the field for almost every game while battling a concussion. He endured Yankee fans calling him lazy and demanding he be DFA'd (released). He went from being an elite player to, statistically, the worst in the league. Where's the fairness in all that?

Also, I'm suffering from deja Henry. I know from my dear friend's TBI that the brain is remarkably fragile, and difficult to treat. Although you'd think that the Yankees, a world-famous organization that's worth more than $7 billion, coulda gotten one of its employees decent neurological care in a timely manner.

I am angry.

*That's how his back was treated during his years as a Cub. I know because we shared the same doctor.