Injuries

They say growing old is not for sissies. Apparently, it isn't for the barefoot, either. I broke my foot. Again. Faithful readers of this column will remember that I broke my foot a year or so ago while moving the hose in the yard. I was barefoot that time, too, and I stepped in a hole. I told people it had happened during full-contact gardening. This time, I was safe inside my kitchen, putting groceries away and making a pot of spaghetti sauce on a rainy Sunday night, when I slammed my baby toe into a chair leg and broke the same bone in the same foot.

CINCINNATI -- A season filled with hope began with the Ravens grimacing in pain. The unsettling combination of injuries and turnovers was too much to overcome for the Ravens last night in a 27-20 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, a troubling first impression in front of a sold-out Paul Brown Stadium and a national television audience. JETS@RAVENS Sunday, 4:15p.m., Ch. 13, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Off the board

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Nickelodeon, the kids' channel, requested 10 minutes and got 15. Some fitness production dropped off a packet asking him to consider a cable series. On a back field somewhere awaits a post-game conditioning program with team strength coach Tim Bishop and tennis star Amanda Coetzer, currently No. 1 in his rankings.Yep, it's spring training again in Brady Anderson's world.But for all of Anderson's body-beautiful training and media-friendly antics -- Home Team Sports has again stuck a microphone on him for its "behind-the-scenes" special -- a very serious chore awaits the Orioles center fielder.

Ravens defensive tackle Tony Siragusa already has life after football planned.Siragusa estimates he has a minimum of two more good years of football left before he joins the media in a full-time capacity. He is doing that part-time now with his one-hour radio show, as well as a short segment on a Ravens pre-game television show.Siragusa said he expects to hook up with a major network to broadcast games in the future. For the present, Siragusa, 32, is again battling a nagging injury, this time to his thigh, and is listed as probable for Sunday's game against the Browns in Cleveland.

When the Ravens decided to bring Ryan Collins on board by putting him on the practice roster two months ago, coach Brian Billick never envisioned the young tight end in uniform on game day this year.Then injuries struck the team's tight ends. A.J. Ofodile went down with a sprained knee. Aaron Pierce went on the injured reserve list with an Achilles' injury. And all along, Collins kept picking up more of Billick's offense and catching everything in sight in practice.The Collins experiment is ahead of schedule.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Via conventional placement, Eugene Kingsale would be headed to Triple-A Rochester this season to continue his quest for the major leagues.But the speedy outfielder does not expect to go any farther north than Maryland when the Orioles' minor-league camp breaks up next month."I'm expecting that I'll probably end up going to [Double-A] Bowie," said Kingsale, the first native Aruban to play in the big leagues. "I don't know why except that I need to play and get at-bats and I might not do that at Rochester.

ERGONOMIC workplace injuries cost the American economy over $50 billion a year and affect 1.8 million U.S. workers annually. Many of these injuries could be prevented by adapting the work station to avoid repetitive motion, overexertion or awkward posture of employees.After nearly a decade of study, the U.S. Labor Department is proposing new standards to address the problem of these injuries, which result in such ailments as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and back pain.The flexible regulations would require employers at 1.9 million work sites to adjust work spaces and equipment to the physical makeup of individual workers.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Nagging injuries that followed center fielder Brady Anderson into the off-season also have accompanied him to spring training, leaving him with soreness in his lower abdomen and right knee and putting his availability for the Orioles' exhibition opener Saturday in question.While no one has classified the conditions as serious, Anderson admits that they may affect his preparation for the season. Manager Ray Miller indicated his center fielder may work every other day until the pains ease.

SEATTLE -- Despite his team's disastrous season pockmarked by widespread injuries, occasionally lethargic play and now a 10-game losing streak, Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos insists that Ray Miller will be back as manager for the 1999 season regardless of who succeeds Pat Gillick as general manager.Maintaining that Miller and his club have faced "a mountain of adversity," Angelos said circumstances have made any critical evaluation of Miller unfair. Miller is serving the first year of a two-year, $1.4 million contract that also includes an option for 2000.

After the injuries to Brady Anderson and Doug Drabek in Toronto, Orioles manager Ray Miller said he was "the lowest I've ever been" -- a powerful statement coming from the manager of Team Titanic."

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Chris Ray spent the time working out and planning the refurbishing of a 1994 Ford Mustang he bought. Danys Baez stayed in Miami, devoting all his time to his rehabilitation and family. Troy Patton logged countless hours on the Internet, following the progress of current and former teammates, and battling the worst "case of boredom" he has experienced. All three Orioles, who missed last season after having extensive arm surgeries, were on the practice fields yesterday as pitchers and catchers persevered through their first spring workout.

The Ravens' offensive line is starting to resemble a M*A*S*H unit. Every week, it seems to wheel in new bodies and dump old ones. The only problem is that it's the same bodies being recycled over and over again. As the Ravens head into the final five games of the 2008 regular season, one of the major questions is whether the offensive line can continue to play at a high level. The group, considering all the injuries, actually turned in a good overall effort against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, and the Ravens won't have much problem pushing around the Bengals in Cincinnati this Sunday, either.

The Ravens presented the Pittsburgh Steelers with a gift Monday night, but I don't see Pittsburgh holding up for the rest of the season. They have a brutal schedule and lost two more key players Monday with injuries against the Ravens. I have a hard time seeing Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger playing the rest of the season without an injury. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ravensinsider)

As Conor Finch lay on the field Monday evening, convulsing, I kept asking myself when the sport of lacrosse is going to do something about the growing number of concussions. Ask any player these days, from the youth leagues to the professional teams, and everybody seems to have had one. They are as common as tattoos, almost as synonymous with lacrosse as faceoffs and body checks. It's getting scary. Worse yet, most of the sport's governing bodies appear to be ignoring the issue. It will continue that way until the inevitable happens, when a player suffers paralysis or, worse yet, death.

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- He was overweight and out of shape. He was lazy on defense and indifferent on offense. He simply couldn't handle playing for a losing team. Orioles catcher Ramon Hernandez heard all of those things last year in the midst of the toughest season of his major league career. The criticism got annoying, but he learned long ago to not take any of it personally. That changed when he started to hear the rumblings that he was coasting on the four-year, $27.5 million contract he signed with the Orioles before the 2006 season.

The emergency room doctor who treated a woman severely beaten on a city bus in December testified in juvenile court yesterday that it was highly unlikely - but not impossible - that her injuries existed before the attack. Nine Robert Poole Middle School students have been accused of attacking Sarah Kreager, 26, and Troy Ennis, 30, aboard the No. 27 bus in Hampden on Dec. 4. Cases against five of those students began this week and are scheduled to resume tomorrow. Some defense attorneys argued that Kreager's injuries resulted from an earlier fight with Ennis, and not what witnesses described to 911 dispatchers as "a riot" involving men who "jumped off the bus and started beating" Kreager.

Quarterback Steve McNair is rehabilitating his shoulder every day, either at the Ravens training facility in Owings Mills or in his home state of Tennessee. He has heard talk about his possible retirement and speculation that the Ravens might trade for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. McNair, 35, doesn't care about either. His only focus is getting completely healthy for this season, because he plans to return as the Ravens' starting quarterback. "Being a competitor, I understand that people are always going to put something, some name out there," McNair said in his first public statements since the end of last season.

Quarterback Steve McNair is rehabilitating his shoulder every day, either at the Ravens training facility in Owings Mills or in his home state of Tennessee. He has heard talk about his possible retirement and speculation that the Ravens might trade for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. McNair, 35, doesn't care about either. His only focus is getting completely healthy for this season, because he plans to return as the Ravens' starting quarterback. "Being a competitor, I understand that people are always going to put something, some name out there," McNair said in his first public statements since the end of last season.

This is less a rant and more of a hallelujah. Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett is walking. New reports make it clear he doesn't have a natural gait yet, but he's walking. To think that just three months ago when Everett's spinal cord injury occurred while making a tackle, the worry was whether he would even live and the chances for this type of recovery appeared incredibly remote. But Everett got immediate, radical treatment when he got hurt. And we can hope the medical lessons learned in his case will help others who suffer injuries that are just as grave but occur under much more anonymous circumstances.

INDIANAPOLIS -- They lost a former Pro Bowl linebacker and two starting cornerbacks to free agency after winning the Super Bowl. Their Pro Bowl offensive tackle retired right before training camp. Injuries have sidelined several others, including their All-Pro defensive end and wide receiver. Unlike the team they will play Sunday night, the Indianapolis Colts have remained among the NFL's elite. While the Ravens certainly will point more to the injuries of a number of former Pro Bowl and All-Pro players than the loss of linebacker Adalius Thomas to free agency for their rapid decline from a 13-3 playoff team to a huge disappointment, the Colts keep plugging the holes.