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Wojciech Szczesny Would Make Glenallen Hill Proud

Arsenal's #1 can throw himself all over the pitch without incident. It's the downtime that's a problem.

He doesn't look like he could injure himself sleeping but here we are
He doesn't look like he could injure himself sleeping but here we are
Ulet Ifansasti

Professional athletes hurt themselves all the time while performing their job duties.  The MLS team I follow, the Portland Timbers, have a goalkeeper named Donovan Ricketts who, this year alone, has had a broken finger (still has), bruised ribs, a sprained metatarsal or two, and all manner of other aches and pains.  This of course comes with the territory - in Ricketts' case, when you're 6'8', have a 20-ish inch vertical leap, and you're throwing yourself in the air to push a ball over the crossbar, you've got a really, really long way to fall.  That's gonna hurt.

Szcz is the same - he's a guy who does a lot of analysis of blades of grass, by nature of his job.  He's managed to stay relatively healthy while doing that, which is awesome, but he's now poised to join that most elite of clubs, the Bizarre Injury Hall of Fame, with the news that he's bruised his ankle...while he was sleeping.

The BIHoF has a fair number of members - this is a small sample, and just from the world of baseball:

1. Glenallen Hill, once of the Toronto Blue Jays, cut his hand open smashing a glass table while asleep and dreaming he was being attacked by spiders.

2. Former Atlanta Brave Ryan Klesko once pulled a muscle while picking up his lunch tray from the Braves' cafeteria.

3. Kevin Mitchell, San Francisco's precursor to Pablo Sandoval, injured himself while eating a doughnut he had microwaved, thus causing him to require oral surgery.  Mitchell also, separately, strained rib muscles while vomiting.

4. Mark Smith of the Orioles once injured his hand.  How?  By sticking it in an air conditioner to find out why it wasn't working.

5. Ricky Bones, of the then-Florida-now-Miami-still-no-one-cares Marlins, injured himself while changing channels on the clubhouse TV.

6. Vince Coleman got eaten by a tarp machine before the 1985 World Series.

So now, Szcz, you're in some elite company.  Congratulations, and may your injury not be serious.