Nick Johnson will miss significant time due to a [fill in the blank].
A torn tendon sheath in that same wrist required surgery in 2008 and limited him to 38 games for Washington, but it was unclear whether Johnson had injured the same tendon. Even before receiving the results of the M.R.I. test, the Yankees anticipated losing him for a while, and they recalled the utility player Kevin Russo from Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Also in today's Times, we learn that David Ortiz is grumpy. And so are Sox fans.
Murray Chass weighed in on the recent immigration legislation in Arizona.
The Bats blog remembered Robin Roberts and the major role he played for the Phillies — after he retired.
"Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running home one of his 714 home runs.
"There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old pitcher in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.
"In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.
"Baseball is a rookie, his experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of 35 hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball, names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.
"Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an over-aged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.
"Baseball is just a game, as simple as a ball and bat, yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.
From a week ago, but still a good question: Is D-Murph the next Super Joe?
Shoulder tightness always makes me nervous.
Phil Birnbaum at Sabermetric Research performed a study on game times that nearly made my head explode.
Sorry Red Sox fans, but questions about your Papi abound.