LEFTOVERS: Skydivers can cause headaches on diamond

Baseball has a history of players sustaining unusual injuries.

Texas Rangers utility man Jeff Baker missed time this summer when he sprained his thumb during an overzealous high-five.

Diamondbacks pitcher Ian Kennedy missed a start in late May after cutting his right index finger doing the dishes. And Sammy Sosa famously landed on the disabled list in 2004 after injuring his back with a violent sneeze.

But Mattingly Romanin might have beaten all of them, though the injury was no fault of his own.

Romanin, a sophomore shortstop from Chicago State, was playing for the Hannibal (Mo.) Cavemen of the Prospect League, when a pregame ceremony took a strange turn.

Romanin and teammates were on the field and appeared to be preparing for the national anthem when a skydiver delivering the game ball slammed into Romanin.

He was on the ground for a couple of minutes and now will have to miss the rest of the summer season after he was diagnosed with a concussion. Because he had a concussion in the spring at Chicago State, he was shut down for the final 18 games this summer.

“I still have headaches and stuff like that, and I just feel a little slow,” Romanin told the Quincy (Ill.) Herald-Whig. “It is unfortunate that it ended my season, and I’m a little upset about that, but you know what, it’s just a freak accident, and there’s nothing we can do now.

“So I’m still trying to be upbeat, and I’m still laughing with everybody.”

■ TOO MUCH BITE FOR BARK — Florida linebacker Antonio Morrison found himself in hot water after barking at a police dog Saturday night.

The officer on the scene stated that Morrison’s actions prevented the police from properly doing their job and arrested him.

But Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell told the Gainesville Sun that a warning would have been a more appropriate response than an arrest.

“Our deputies are caught in a lot of threatening situations and are having to make rational, very well thought out decisions in the context of chaos, and sometimes they don’t think them all the way through,” Darnell said.

Apparently Florida State Attorney William P. Cervone agreed and dismissed both misdemeanor charges against Morrison for lack of evidence.

The arrest was Morrison’s second this summer, and coach Will Muschamp suspended the linebacker for the first two games of the season.

■ WHAT RIVALRY? — Few things can temper the rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State.

Apparently a young fan beating cancer is one of those things.

Grant Reed, a 12-year-old Ohio State fan from Bellville, Ohio, who named his brain tumor “Michigan,” was released from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus on July 5.

For once, Wolverines coach Brady Hoke was glad to see Michigan lose.

Hoke called Reed at home on Monday and offered him four tickets to the Ohio State-Michigan game in Ann Arbor on Nov. 30.

COMPILED BY DAMON SEITERS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL