Mandel’s Musings: Sports Is Not Always About Fun and Games, Ask Jayson Tatum and Oswaldo Cabrera

Tatum, the 27-year-old superstar who had scored 42 points in the Celtics’ biggest game of the year up to the point of his injury, most likely tore his Achilles tendon, not only ending his season but, in all likelihood will keep him from playing all of next year as well, right in the middle of his athletic prime.

Cabrera, a 26-year-old utility infielder who finally earned a starting job as the third baseman of the Yankees, slid awkwardly into home plate last night in the ninth inning of a Yankees-Mariners game in Seattle. He somehow caught his left foot into the dirt around the plate with the television characters clearly showing his left foot dislocate and snap away from the ankle hanging in a detached, twisted position from the rest of his leg. The Yankee trainer came out to the field and covered Cabrera’s foot with a towel so fans and the TV-viewing audience could not see the excruciatingly difficult visual of the crooked foot caused by the gruesome dislocation.

Sports isn’t all just fun and games, kids. Both players, each entering their athletic prime, will have long rehabilitations ahead of them which assuredly will be painstaking and will take longer than a year. There is zero guarantee they will return the same player before last night’s injuries.