I heard that Brian Roberts was hitting off of a tee today in Sarasota. Roch Kubatko even tweeted a blurry picture of it. I wish I could get excited, but I'm reading between the lines. He's not facing live pitching, running, or even taking ground balls at this point. I just have this sinking feeling that Brian's slow recovery from multiple concussions will keep him from ever taking the field for the Orioles again. The worst part is that these symptoms have impaired Roberts' day-to-day life, but the uncertainty of the whole thing is what makes it hard to see. In my experience as an O's fan, I've seen prominent players slowly decline (Cal Ripken, Jr., Brady Anderson, Melvin Mora), and I've seen others simply fall off the face of the earth (Albert Belle, Javy Lopez, Vladimir Guerrero, I could keep going...). But it's like Brian is in limbo. You can't put a bandage on your brain, there's no exercise you can do to make headaches go away. I hope he'll make it back, but I can't even begin to lay odds on something like that.
That's too bad. He's a heck of a ballplayer. I never liked him because he was always someone who killed us, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
ReplyDelete1967ers - In the week since I posted this, there have been encouraging signs. He's been able to do some sprints and team warmup activities, but I guess I'm expecting the worst just so I can be pleasantly surprised if he recovers.
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