So my effort to maintain simple consistency completely took a shit yesterday with Throw Back Thursday. On #tbt I try to provide my 10’s of 20’s of followers with photos from old school Detroit athletics, and yesterday, I failed to do as such.

The reason, however, is that I cracked a rib on the left side of my chest- for real. Last Wednesday in a beer league hockey game (LOL), I caught a pass on the boards, got ride of the puck to the center cutting over the blue line, and a few seconds later I’m getting absolutely teed up by a hip check. I felt the guys tailbone go right into my rib cage. He was a big fella, I’m the size of an 8th grader. It hurt. He got a penalty. I got a hospital visit a week later.

Anyways, I played the next day in my Thursday night league, and again this past Wednesday, but after I got off the ice my chest was just in absolute flames, so yesterday I went to the doctor and ayyyyyy cracked rib. For those unaware, they don’t do SHIT for a cracked rib. I didn’t even get any cool drugs, just 800 mg Motrin and sent on my way, (but I did get to bask in glory of a beer league championship that Wednesday night. Team Name: Draper’s Kids)

 – photo cred @johnarthurbert

Long story short I feel like a failure for not fighting through my injury and providing you all with old school photos of the Detroit teams we hold so dear to our hearts, so to make up for it, today I’m doing #tbt on a Friday (I don’t believe in Flash Back Friday), and show casing Detroit injuries that our favorite players have fought through to give our city a chance to win.

First up, the ultimate warrior, Stevie Y. This man was the poster boy of playing through pain growing up. And with his countless knee injuries it seemed nothing could stop him, that was until May 1st, 2004, when in game 5 versus the Calgary Flames The Captain caught one straight on eye, in which he broke his orbital bone and scratched his cornea..resulting in a four hour surgery which left #19’s career hanging in the balance. The next year was the lockout, and Yzerman would return for one more season in 05-06 to score 14 goals and chisel 20 apples for 34 points.

March 19th, 2012, Detroit had just acquired Prince fielder that off-season and Detroit Tigers fans were very excited about the team’s prospects for the season. With Prince at first Miguel Cabrera would take over at his original position, 3rd base. Many were nervous about his defensive abilities over there, and sure as shit, in spring training he takes one right off the face, only to have his eye spared by his Oakley shades. The Tigers would reach the World Series that year and Miggy would go 44/139/.330.

November 22nd, 2009, rookie Matthew Stafford proved to the city that he was the Lions QB of the future. After getting completely SMOKED by Cleveland Browns DE C.J. Mosley the play before, Frat Boy threw a TD pass to the Lions’ unforgivably irrelevant TE, Brandon Pettigrew. The Lions would go onto win 2 games that season, which was 200% better than the season before.

June 1st, 2004. In another grueling battle with the Indiana Pacers, the Detroit Pistons were at home with a 3-2 lead in Game 6 of the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals. With pressure mounting Ron Artest (now Meta Worldpeace) threw an errant elbow at the already masked face of Rip Hamilton. Rip finished as the games’ leading scorer with 21 in route to leading Detroit to a victory and a birth in the 2004 NBA finals, which they would go onto win 4-1 over the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers.

🍾

 – Frank