on the job hazards

there are few things quite as sickening as watching an athlete get injured right before your eyes, thanks to the high tech camera equipment piping these large-as-life images right into your home, so close up you feel like you're right there on the field of play. whether it's a hockey stick across knuckles. or a football player with a dislocated shoulder leaving his arm dangling limply or his leg broken & twisted at a disturbing angle. or as was the case in last night's Red Sox game against the Devil Rays, when the Sox star pitcher Matt Clement took a line drive right in the side of the head. knocked right flat to the ground. made my stomach clench up & my eyes water to see him grab near his ear & crumple to the picther's mound dirt. to see him laying there so still & the medical team moving frantically & team mates gathered round in concern. i realize that these injuries are an understood hazard of the job these men have but i hate to see any athlete take a serious, potentially career-ending blow. it doesn't matter if he's the best pitcher on my favorite baseball team...an obscure player i've never heard of before...or one of my least favorite professional athletes from a team i loathe. when you get past the uniform & the sports equipment, we're all still people--flesh & blood & muscle & bone. the pain is still the same, regardless of how much money we make or what job we hold. my thoughts are with Matt Clement & those who care about him & the doctors who are tending to him. and i hope that he has not sustained an injury, both mentally as well as physically, that will end his still young career.