Jeff Bennett Is a Man's Man

...now if only he were a better pitcher, we'd be onto something.

Bennett, as you may have heard, came into the game yesterday in relief, and allowed Alex Rodriguez to turn what was a tie game into a Yankee lead with a two-run single. Bennett got out of the inning, and then, in a shining example of the cool, calm, calculated decision-making process common among professional athletes, punched a clubhouse door. And broke his hand.

Now, this sort of thing is not uncommon.  What is uncommon is what makes this story newsworthy in our eyes.  Bennett proceeded to pop the fractured bone back into place and then go back out on the mound and pitch.

We're not Will Carroll, but part of this seems fishy to us.  You can't just pop a fractured bone back into place.  It may move, but the damage is already done to the bone itself, not the structure of the hand.  So something seems like it's either been misreported or misdiagnosed.  

IN ANY EVENT, though, how cool is that?  Prior to yesterday, Jeff Bennett was a nondescript middle reliever who could be stretched out a few innings and whom we'd rather not see in the ballgame, but there were worse pitchers.  But now...well, now he's still a pretty bad middle reliever.  But he's much cooler in our eyes!  Sure, it was his nonthrowing hand, but we've played ball with a fractured finger and anytime the ball goes into the glove, that thing's throbbing.  And the pitcher does have to catch the ball pretty frequently.  So props to him for plying his mediocre trade in self-inflicted, self-diagnosed, and self-treated pain.  Hopefully the club doesn't release him for his lack of judgement in a frustrating situation.