Rick Wright and George Paletta pose in front of the Cardinals medical facility

When the Cardinals signed pitcher Brad Penny to a one year, $8 million dollar contract on December 8, 2009, fans embraced the power pitcher as the final piece to solidify an uneasy rotation. And Penny started the year off impressively, averaging five strikeouts a game and keeping an ERA near 3.00. Then, after hitting a grand slam on May 21st, Penny came out of the game with an “aggravation” of the oblique muscle in his back, an injury that was pre-existing but ignored by team doctors. Team physicians Rick Wright M.D. and Michael Milne M.D. said the injury was not serious, and that Penny should rest the muscle and return in two to four weeks.

Penny never pitched again that year.

Sadly, the handling of Penny’s injury seems to be a symptom of an ongoing problem within the organization. Cardinals players are routinely misdiagnosed, prescribed the wrong course of action, and rehabilitated incorrectly. I imagine entering the training and medical facilities at Busch feels a bit like a Jew entering Auschwitz, with crazy medical experiments taking place in dimly-lit rooms, the patients chained to hissing steam pipes while squatting in bloody puddles. Leeches might still be used in the basement for cases of swelling, and snapping electrodes are applied liberally for muscle strains of any kind.

While such visions might be (slightly) exaggerated for effect, the truth is that the medical staff of the St. Louis Cardinals has a shocking record of incompetence. Let’s look at some examples from the last decade. … [visit site to read more]

The first arrivals to camp were Jake Westbrook, Adam Wainwright, Mitchell Boggs, Jason … [visit site to read more]

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