Injuries and the contracts that follow
Jim Lonborg
Baseball is full of contracts that contain clauses prohibiting players from participating in extracurricular activities that can lead to debilitating injuries.
For some players, those clauses include:
No motorcycling riding (yes, we see you there, Ron Gant in 1994).
Forget basketball (yep, that’s you Aaron Boone in 2004).
Skydiving, bungee jumping and mountain climbing also appear on the taboo list in baseball contracts.
Skiing is one that shows up after the horrific injury Boston’s Jim Lonborg suffers 56 years ago today as his tears two ligaments in his left knee after stumbling on the sloops at Lake Tahoe in California.
Jim Lonborg after his injury
Lonborg understandably is enjoying some time away from the game after leading the Red Sox to the 1967 American League pennant, going 22-9 during the regular season and winning the Cy Young Award after it.
His magnificent season includes a 3.16 earned-run average while leading the American League both in starts at 39 and strikeouts with 246.
He pitches just as well in the World Series, winning two of his three starts against St. Louis. He holds the Cardinals’ potent offense to one run in 18 innings of his first two Series starts before faltering in the seventh and final game while pitching on just two days of rest.
The 25-year-old Lonborg also leaves for his Lake Tahoe skiing trip with a new contract worth $50,000 for the 1968 season, a nice reward for a 1967 season that also includes his first All-Star Game selection surely with many more to follow.
Only no more follow.
After his skiing accident 56 years ago today, Lonborg does not make his next start until Boston’s 59th game of the 1968 season.
After initially pitching well, Lonborg struggles in the second half of the season and carries those struggles through the 1969, going 13-21 over those two seasons with a 4.40 ERA.
A shoulder injury then limits Lonborg to 34 innings in 1970.
Lonborg eventually rebounds well enough to win 10 games in 1971 for Boston, which then trades him to Milwaukee in a 10-player deal that also sends power-hitting first baseman George Scott, pitcher Ken Brett and others to the Brewers in exchange for a handful of players including speedy leadoff hitter Tommy Harper and pitcher Marty Pattin.
Lonborg wins 14 games for the Brewers in 1972 before they flip him after just one season to Philadelphia, where he earns 75 wins over the final six-plus seasons of his career.
Lonborg never again wins 20 games as he does in 1967, but he effectively joins future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton in headlining a rotation that leads the Phillies first to respectability and then into contention before Lonborg’s career ends midway through the 1979 season.
The legacy of Lonborg’s career – well, at least part of it —lives on today as his accident from 1967 immediately has owners and their attorneys crafting future player contracts to prohibit skiing and any other offseason recreation they deem too extreme.