Empyreal Environs

You may have heard that my teammate Roberto Petagine will be undergoing surgery for a partially torn meniscus. The menisci are the shock absorbers of the knee. They assist in centering the knee joint during activity and minimizing the amount of stress on the articular cartilage. Both menisci and the surface cartilage in your knee produces a nigh frictionless gliding surface, making the knee the most mobile joint in the body. Such mobility introduces the higher probability of damage, however.

Typically, a meniscus will tear due to a twisting injury. Roberto can expect to feel pain at the side or in the center of the knee, depending on where the tear is. He should able to walk, although swelling will increase over 2 to 3 days. If he overuses the knee, he may further injure the knee, so it is likely he won’t be making the 25-man roster.

It has been said that the knee is the most vulnerable part of the body. An equivalent would be two steel bars being held together by a couple of rubberbands. For average people, the knee is used over a million times a year; as you can imagine, a Major League baseball player uses his knees considerably more. Roberto’s unfortunate happenstance might give me a spot back on the roster. The wise Bill Watterson said, through Calvin, “If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.”

Every Friday, Dave McCarty will join us to discuss a topic of interest to him and probably no one else but the author of this site. He thanks Pine Tar Helmet for her idea to induce injury to Petagine...err, explore the marvel that is the human knee, that is.