Spinning Room

Yet another virtue of baseball (and in this instance, basketball) is that it’s hard to lie or hide injuries the way they try in football and hockey.  With the NFL at least, I get the strategy, to keep the opponent from practicing for a particular player or players.  Since teams only play each other at most twice in the regular season, it’s a real disadvantage not knowing who you’re going to face on Sunday.

But why do it in hockey?  After the first week of saying So-and-so has an “upper-body injury,” you risk coming off stupid, as Blackhawks’ coach Joel Quenneville has ever since goalie Corey Crawford was put on the DL last month.  (Hawks’ senior advisor Scotty Bowman joined the dumb-club by casting doubt on the below report, but he can’t say for sure what’s ailing Crawford because, as he admitted in today’s Trib, “I’m not a doctor.”  OK, but is he at all curious to find out after all this time?  Does he own a phone so he can call the team doctor?  Or maybe the Hawks employ a shaman instead.)  Quenneville still doesn’t want to talk about it, even with reports circulating that vertigo could keep Crawford out the remainder of the season.  If that’s the case, I can empathize.

I’ve suffered vertigo twice, the first time coming less than 24 hours before Clare’s graduation from Elmhurst.  This was probably my psyche protesting the end of my daughter’s athletic career.  Trust me, that was a mistake.

I happened to be in the basement reading email when all of a sudden I broke into a sweat.  A few minutes later, the room started spinning, like in the movies, only it didn’t stop.  I lay down on the floor to see if that would help; it didn’t.  This went on for maybe 20 minutes, with me thinking, How can it possibly get any worse?  I should’ve kept my mouth shut, because that’s when the vomiting started.

The good news was I had a wastepaper basket nearby.  The bad news was I couldn’t sit up to use it.  No, I could only lay on my side and hurl into the can, so to speak.  This went on long—and loud—enough for Clare to come downstairs to see what all the racket was.  Long story short, I ended up in the emergency room.  Oh, and the second episode wasn’t nearly as long and didn’t involve Clare (I think.)

At the very least, Crawford would get a whole lot of sympathy from the public if he’s suffering from vertigo.  As it is, the Hawks aren’t doing themselves any favors playing dumb.  Do that, and you risk having some very nasty stuff land on your face.