The Cone of Shame (One Sixty-Two: Day Fifty-Eight)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Fifty-Eight: Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies

It looks like our dog got into a tussle with a lampshade, and came out on the losing end.

Some call it an Elizabethan collar, others call it a space collar, and still others label it the “cone of shame.” For Daisy, this upside-down, plastic lampshade is meant to keep her from chewing open the stitches that are part and parcel of the spaying she underwent this week.

Daisy is a 6-month-old golden retriever who’s normally teeming with energy. With the collar, though, she seems a bit depressed. She keeps bumping into doorways, and has trouble sleeping in her favorite spot beneath our bed. We have to fill up the water bowl higher than normal so she can actually reach the water and drink. And, to be honest, it’s also kind of hard for her to lick her butt these days. The dog wants her life back.

But for now, she must adjust. There are times in our lives when recovery is the name of the game, whether we like it or not. Troy Tulowitzki is the best player on the Colorado Rockies, a team viewed by many in April as a sure-fire playoff team. Thursday night, Tulowitzki was batting against Minnesota Twins reliever Alex Burnett in the later innings of a Rockies win. The pitch came inside, struck Tulowitzki’s left wrist, and changed his season completely.

Doctors found a fracture in the shortstop’s wrist yesterday. It won’t require surgery, but Tulowitzki is not going to be playing any baseball until August. Whether he likes it or not, he’s wearing a cast instead of a baseball glove. The ground balls that Tulowitzki typically scoops up so smoothly will be fielded by someone else. When the All-Star Game rolls around in a few weeks, Tulowitzki will be watching the game on TV, rather than suiting up for the game with his peers.

It’s not fun, this recovery thing. It’s easy to wallow in self-pity and stare blankly at the TV. But this too shall pass, as they say. And Troy, you can take comfort in the fact that however uncomfortable that cast feels, it is no lampshade. You really don’t want that; take it from Daisy.