Injury likely to keep Sharapova out for rest of season

By Douglas Robson, Special to USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Maria Sharapova is unlikely to return to the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour this year, her longtime agent, Max Eisenbud, said Wednesday. The reigning Australian Open champion pulled out of the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Open after an MRI exam in Montreal this month revealed two small tears in her right shoulder.

The 21-year-old Russian — who appeared in New York for opening ceremonies at the year’s final major — first injured the shoulder in a fourth-round match at the 2006 U.S. Open and reinjured it in a first round win at Montreal earlier in August, according to Eisenbud.

Sharapova has occasionally had bouts of serving difficulties. Eisenbud said this was likely due to her subconscious effort to move her ball toss and avoid the pain.

The three-time major winner is under doctor’s orders not to hit a ball the next four weeks and will spend most of the fall in a hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., rehabbing her shoulder with Brett Fischer. Fischer is a prominent physical therapist who has worked with many professional baseball players, among them Chicago Cubs’ pitcher Kerry Wood.

Fischer-Sports trained Gaines Adams stole the show Monday at the NFL Combine with both his speed and athleticism.
For the defense, Adams rises the combine bar -

By Tony Pauline, TFY Draft Preview

INDIANAPOLIS — As the NFL Combine enters it’s final day, the top prospects from the defensive side of the ball took to the RCA Dome. There was plenty of buzz about some exciting performances while others were not as fortunate.

Gaines Adams/DE/Clemson: Of all the defensive linemen who took to the field Monday morning, Adams stole the show. Running both 40s in the low 4.7-second range, Adams displayed his unlimited athleticism for scouts. Not only did Adams stand out during the defensive line drills, but he also looked great when running through a battery of linebacker drills. Adams presently ranks as the No. 1 defender in the draft.

Adams was chosen by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the 4th overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. He signed a six-year deal with the Buccaneers on July 26th, 2007, worth $46 million, with $18.6 million guaranteed. He registered his first solo sack against the Atlanta Falcons in week 11 of the 2007 season. At the end of the 2007 season Adams had 35 tackles, 6 sacks and 2 forced fumbles in 2007, he led all 2007 rookies with his six sacks. This performance gained him a place in the 2007 NFL All-Rookie team. He also played in Tampa Bay Buccaneers playoff loss to the New York Giants and finished the game with five tackles and one sack. Against the Colts on Week 5, he blocked a field goal attempt by Adam Vinatieri, becoming the first Buccaneer player to record a field goal block since the formation of the NFC South.

Adams attended Fork Union Military Academy in 2001 and recorded 58 tackles, 22 sacks, and two interceptions in 10 games. He was a three year starter at Cambridge Academy, a small private school which only had an 8-man football team, where he was a dominant wide receiver and defensive end. His coach during high school was former University of South Carolina quarterback, Steve Taneyhill. In 2000, his team won the state title. During that year, Cambridge shut out four different teams, beating one team 80-0. They had suffered only one loss that season to arch-rival King Academy. He had 158 career receptions for 4,394 yard and 65 touchdowns, as well as 341 tackles, 10 interceptions, and 33 sacks in his career, and was a two-time All-state honoree. He chose Clemson over Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. He had narrowed down his choices to North Carolina and Clemson, then signed with Clemson after the Tar Heels unexpectedly rescinded their offer. At Cambridge, he was named to the Greenwood Touchdown Club/Index-Journal All-Lakelands Team (which included four counties)

Sunday, July 27, 2008
Paul Hoynes
Plain Dealer Reporter

Joe Borowski, cut by the Indians after leading the American League with 45 saves last year, threw for Boston and Detroit on Saturday in Tempe, Ariz.

He said his agent has talked to eight other teams since being designated for assignment and released by the Indians on July 4.

“I feel like I’m 23 again,” said Borowski.

Borowski said his trainers in Arizona found some collateral damage caused by a triceps injury that put him on the disabled list in April.

“They found what they said felt like a big knotted rope under my right lat muscle,” said Borowski.

“It was in my right armpit. After they massaged it and dug in there, they finally broke it up a little. It released my arm. I felt like it wasn’t even attached to my body.”

Borowski has thrown three bullpen sessions.

“I can see life and break on the ball when it comes out of my hand,” said Borowski. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it this year.”

Since 2004, Borowski has been spending parts of his off-season at Brett Fischer’s Sports Therapy in Tempe. After the Indians released him, he went back to Fischer looking for answers.

“I explained everything that was going on with me,” he said.

“I said I felt great and my shoulder was strong, but when the ball came out of my hand I felt like I was throwing a change-up. They put me through a lot of tests and said I was as strong, if not stronger, than I was when I left for spring training.

“Then one day I was getting a massage and they found the knot. They said it was scar tissue and blood from my triceps injury.”

Borowski came out of spring training with a strained right triceps, but tried to pitch through it. He went on the disabled list April 15.

“No one wants it to end the way it did with the Indians,” said Borowski, “when you think, ‘Well, maybe my body just can’t do it anymore.’ This is a big weight off me.”

http://www.yardbarker.com/users/DonovanMcNabb

Just wanted to check in from Arizona again. I’ve been out here this week working out with a few guys including Brian Dawkins, LJ Smith, Jason Avant, Hank Baskett and Lorenzo Booker.

We have been getting after it from sunup to sundown. We start at Fischer Sports, a place I have been working out at most of the offseason. Brett Fischer – an Eagles fan from Bucks County - is a physical therapist, certified athletic trainer and strength and conditioning specialist. He has helped me through what he calls functional training. We mimic the motions that we use on the football field. For me it might be an emphasis on using my abdominals, hips and lower body to create torque when I throw the ball. For some of the other guys it might be trying to get explosion out of their cuts.

A few of us are coming off injury and that is Brett’s specialty. We get great care from our trainers in Philadelphia but Brett has some different methods for rehabilitation and I know that my body has reacted well to it. His staff has also set us up with nutritional counseling providing organic meals and snacks for the week.

Like most trainers today, Brett believes in the many benefits of core strength. In fact, he developed the AB Dolly and some people recognize him from the infomercials. We’ve been using the AB Dolly all week in many of our core exercises. If you want one check out this site - http://fischer-sports.com/ABdolly.html

I’ll check back later this week and let you know more about our workouts.

2008 ALL-STAR game at Yankee Stadium..

Joe Crede ( Chicago White Sox) copming off back sugery.
Justin Mourneau ( Minnesota Twins)
Kerry Wood (Chicago Cubs)- coming off rotator cuff/shoulde rproblems

by Kerry Fehr-Snyder - Jun. 4, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Maria Aguilar is a 41-year-old mother of four, recently remarried and paralyzed from the waist down.

Five days a week, she straps braces on her legs, lifts herself from her wheelchair onto a treadmill with the help of staff members at the Neuro Institute in Tempe.

Not bad for somebody who crushed two vertebrae and damaged another in her lower back three years ago in Guadalajara, Mexico, when she fell through a second-story skylight.

The institute was founded on the idea that patients with spinal-cord and brain injuries can regain the ability to walk and re-establish cognitive abilities with enough physical and occupational therapy.

Maria’s future husband, Enrique Chaveste, was talking to Maria on a cellphone from Sacramento when the accident occurred.

“I heard everything,” he said.

When he heard glass shattering, Enrique thought Maria was doing dishes. But when her 9-year-old daughter began screaming, he knew something serious had happened. The screams alerted Maria’s three sons, ages 11, 13 and 15.

The children rushed to Maria’s splayed and unmoving body in the house’s atrium. Bleeding profusely from her head, Maria calmly instructed her children to get her medical-insurance card and call for help.

It was 11 p.m. and Maria, overcome by heat in the upstairs laundry room, had tried to sit on the ledge of the skylight when she fell through the enclosure.

Maria had nine hours of surgery to rebuild her crushed vertebrae and the damaged vertebra. After the swelling subsided, she could not walk, though the sac containing her spinal fluid was not damaged. Because of that, the doctors didn’t completely give up hope, but the message was that it would be nearly impossible for her to walk again.

Undeterred, Maria came to the Neuro Institute within six months to begin physical rehabilitation.

“She never lost (the idea that) she’s going to walk again,” said Enrique, who had been dating Maria for three months when the accident happened.

Last year, they were married in Las Vegas.

“We are a team,” said Enrique, 57.

“We are a team,” agreed Maria, smiling, “a dream team.”

The couple returned to the Neuro Institute recently and will spend the next six weeks working on Maria’s rehabilitation regimen, six hours a day, five days a week.

A doctor referred the couple to the Neuro Institute, founded in 2002 by Arnie Fonseca Jr. after his son, Brandon Gray, was badly injured in a 2001 car accident. Gray is paralyzed and in therapy.

Fonseca, who has a master’s degree in exercise physiology, said patients can achieve what they want through trust and hard work.

In addition to working with the patients in treatment, Fonseca works with staffers to create therapy plans.

“He’s Sergeant Arnie to us,” Enrique said. “Every day, he works to keep us going. Arnie was the positive guy.”

Fonseca, 48, said he refuses to tell people with brain injuries that they must accept living in a wheelchair or with brain damage if there’s a way they can be rehabilitated.

“All three of these guys have a right to be pissed off, but they’re not,” he said of the three patients working out at the center recently.

Among them were 21-year-old James Tucker and 22-year-old Michael Tubbs, both of Tempe, who suffered severe head traumas in rock-climbing and skateboarding accidents.

Three years ago, Tucker fell 70 feet off South Mountain in the late afternoon and wasn’t discovered by a rescue crew until 1 a.m. He came to the Neuro Institute in a wheelchair but now walks with a walker and is able to drive.

Tubbs suffered short-term memory loss from a skateboarding accident while “bombing,” or careening down a parking garage at Arizona State University two weeks before he was to start school there.

His skull was crushed. He was in a coma for a week and says he lost several weeks of memories, including a trip to Oregon and moving into his friend’s apartment.

Tubbs had just earned an associate’s degree from Scottsdale Community College in Web design.

“I always had above a 3.5-grade-point average, but now, I’m not organized at all,” he said. “And I eat like a bear, every hour now, because I lost so much weight.”

When Maria first came to the Neuro Institute, it took her two hours to walk 800 feet. She walks about three times as far now in the same amount of time.

“I started to feel progress in January,” Maria said. “My goal now is to control the knee.”

Enrique sold his drywall-supply business in Sacramento to pay Maria’s medical bills and opened a spa in Guadalajara for people with physical disabilities.

Maria cashed out her life-insurance policy to pay for her rehabilitation while she’s in the United States as a temporary visitor.

Family members have been caring for Maria’s children back home.

“I miss them a lot,” she said. “But I have to keep working.”

By WEEK Sports

When News 25 Sports Director Lee Hall spoke with Joe Crede 12 days ago, the White Sox 3rd baseman was hitting 300 and playing gold glove caliber defense.
He’s cooled off a bit since then, along with his team. But after playing only 47 games last season because of back surgery, any start’s a good one for Joe Creede.

“It’s always great to get off to a good start, especially in this league, whenever pitchers can go out and make adjustments on every weakness you feature on a nightly basis,” Crede said. ” To be able to return and make those adjustments yourself at the plate, whether on defense or whatever. To be able to get off to a good start, because you know in this game it’s such a long season that you’re going to hit a bump in the road. Hopefully you’ll be able to bounce back a little faster than what you have in the past.”

Crede: “Everything feels great out there, knock on wood. It’s just, a lot of different things in the past have come from having a bad back. You never realize the importance of how much you use your back until it’s hurt and it’s bothering you. It not only affects everything you do on the field, but off the field as well. Whenever you go out there and you’re not able to perform at a level that you know you can perform at, you know you need to take a step back and try to do something about it.”

News 25: How bad was it? How bad has it been for you?

Crede: “It was just more frustrating than anything else. Last year I’d have back spasms and it got to the point where you’d take anti-inflammatories. They’d work for awhile, then those would stop working. I’d take pain pills on top of that, and those would stop working. Then all of a sudden you’re not getting sleep at night. You’re getting headaches out the wazoo every single day. It just keeps snowballing from there and frustrating was the biggest word I could use to describe last year for me.”

The White Sox have lost five straight, but when we talked to Crede they were riding high atop the American League Central and feeling good about this year, especially compared to last season.

Crede: “It’s fun to be around and it’s fun to play with these guys, you know, because of what they bring to the field every day. There’s a lot of energy and a lot of looseness in the clubhouse and there’s a lot of fight in this team this year. I think everybody’s fighting to not have a year like we had last year and I think this team knows its capabilities and I think we can expect to win on a nightly basis with this team.”

Biography:
Is married to Chia-Ling Wu (12/7/03)…was signed by John Cox and Gordon Blakeley…attended the same middle school in Taiwan (Chien-Hsin Middle School) as current Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo…both have remained friends and train together in a preseason conditioning program in Phoenix, Arizona at Fischer Sports…played baseball at Taipei Ti Wu University in Taiwan…was a member of the 2004 Chinese-Taipei Olympic Team and a two-time Olympic All-Star…earned Most Valuable Player honors for Taiwan at the Asian Games.

Full Name: Chien-Ming Wang
Born: 03/31/1980
Birthplace: Tainan, Taiwan
Height: 6′3″ Weight: 225
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
College: Taipei Tu Wu
MLB Debut: 04/30/2005

Rays’ Haynes Getting Another Chance

By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 4, 2008

BALTIMORE - It goes without saying that anyone in a major-league clubhouse should appreciate his station in life, considering how few among those that dreamt the same dream actually get a chance to follow through on it.

There are, however, those who exude a certain comfort level, as if they’re fulfilling a birthright. Sure, they’ll trot out the old take-’em-one-day-at-a-time cliche at every opportunity, but such statements ring hollow coming from some.

Not Nathan Haynes. His appreciation for every minute spent in a major-league uniform is profound.

“If you’ve never really gone through anything, it’s just lip service,” the Rays’ newest outfielder said Thursday. “For me, it actually means something.”

Haynes is only 28 years old, but he already has stared the end of his baseball career directly in the face. A shot-in-the-dark surgical procedure three years ago salvaged a chance to keep playing, but he knows he will be dealing with pain throughout his lower body for the rest of his life.

His medical history is astonishing. He already has undergone three knee surgeries, three operations to fix sports hernias, one procedure to repair torn ligaments in his left thumb and the 2005 operation on his left hip he calls a “career-saver.”

“You name it, it’s pretty much happened,” Haynes said. “I laugh all the time because - knock on wood - I don’t ever sprain ankles. I don’t really pull hammies. If I’m out, I’m out.”

He thought he was out for good a few years back. After signing with the Giants as a minor-league free agent following several years spent in the Angels’ system, he came down with pain in his left hip that he couldn’t shake. A cortisone injection masked the problem briefly, but as soon as the medicine wore off it was more of the same.

The Giants sent Haynes to Fischer Sports, a high-level training and rehabilitation center in Phoenix that serves numerous professional athletes. More failed attempts at rehab prompted the trainer who founded the center, Brett Fischer, to recommend a hip specialist in Vail, Colo., he knew from his work with NHL players.

Marc Philippon administered an arthrogram - an MRI exam with dye injected into the problem area - and according to Haynes, “it just lit up.”

There was a point on the head of Haynes’ left femur that was catching the labrum, a type of cartilage in the hip, with each step the player took when he was running.

“So it was basically just like a dull knife slicing it each time,” Haynes said.

He underwent a procedure in which the head of his femur was shaved down. That solved the problem in the short term, but doctors have told Haynes he will suffer from arthritis when he gets older.

“I’ve had doctors look at X-rays of my hips and they always ask me if I’ve been in a car accident,” he said. “It’s just not supposed to be like that. Fortunately, at this point, I’m still able to run and all that stuff. We’ll deal with whatever happens when I’m 40 or 50 later on down the line.”

For a player whose game is built mostly around speed, it was a long road back. He talked to the Angels about returning to their organization, but they wanted to see proof that he was healthy. So Haynes returned to the field in 2006 with Gary (Ind.) of the independent Northern League.

“I was just trying to keep a uniform on my back, basically, at that point,” he said.

The Angels saw enough to bring him back to their farm system, but the majors still seemed worlds away at that point. Even when the day he had nearly written off finally arrived last May, Haynes didn’t believe what was happening.

Brian Harper, the manager of the Angels’ Triple-A Salt Lake affiliate, called Haynes into his office and told him he was going to the show after 776 games over 11 seasons in the minors. The news didn’t process immediately. Haynes said “all right,” turned around, and walked out. He stopped in his tracks and asked Harper to repeat what he had said.

“Everything ran through my mind,” Haynes said. “It made all those surgeries, rehabs, all that stuff - it made it all worth it.”

Haynes spent the rest of last season with the Angels as a reserve, playing in 40 games. The Rays picked him up off waivers last week.

The Angels coaches that Rays manager Joe Maddon talked to labeled Haynes’ work ethic “spectacular,” and after all he has endured, it’s easy to see where it came from.

“I talk to some people and they’re like ‘I hate this, I want to give up,’” Haynes said. “I’m the wrong guy to tell that, because when people say you’ve been to the bottom - I’ve been to the bottom.”

Reporter Marc Lancaster can be reached at (813) 259-7227 or mlancaster@tampatrib.com.

Former Browns RB Green attempting comeback
By Jason Cole, Yahoo! Sports
Mar 17, 1:33 pm EDT

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Even when you don’t make the connection with William Green these days, you get the message.

“All things work for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose,” the recorded voice of William’s wife, Asia, says on the couple’s answering service.

The 2002 first-round pick (No. 16 overall) has spent the past two seasons finding his way with God. Now, the question is whether Green will find his way back to the NFL. After two seasons out of the game, Green will be working out Tuesday at Boston College, his alma mater, in hopes of catching the eye of NFL scouts, coaches and executives.

There figures to be a good crowd in attendance at the Chestnut Hill campus. Matt Ryan, the top-rated quarterback in this year’s draft, is scheduled to work out along with the other draft-eligible players from BC. Ryan could go as high as No. 1 overall to Miami … or to another team if the Dolphins decide to trade out of the top slot.

For Green, the question is whether he will get a shot to resume a short-lived career. When the Cleveland Browns took Green in the first round six years ago, then-coach Butch Davis did so despite having a chance to select Clinton Portis, whom he coached at the University of Miami. Davis has forever been second-guessed for that move as Green became a draft bust. Green was released in training camp in 2006, having never reached 1,000 rushing yards in a season and carrying only 20 times in 2005.

Said one NFL scout who handles pro personnel: “He showed almost nothing as a player when he was in Cleveland. I mean, by the end, you couldn’t tell the difference between him and a bunch of guys who weren’t even drafted. Didn’t run hard, didn’t run fast, didn’t do anything that ever made you say he was anything special.”

The most significant news of Green’s career was a four-game suspension he served in 2003 for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. Green readily admits to his past marijuana use and says he has continued to be tested regularly even while he has been away from the game. Until players officially retire, they continue to be tested after failing tests earlier in their career.

“What I say is that I’m glad it was only marijuana I was using and not something worse,” Green said. “I quit that and I’ve been clean for many years now.”

Now, Green wants another chance. He has been working out in Phoenix under respected trainer Brett Fischer for the past five months, quietly biding his time and getting in shape.

“I wasn’t prepared to play in the NFL the first time around,” Green said. Both he and his wife say he doesn’t have to play. He invested wisely enough and still has real estate holdings in New Jersey.

“We can live comfortably on what we have, that’s not it,” said Asia, who is raising five children with Green. “William was smart with his money. He’s not desperate to get back in the NFL.”

Instead, Green said he is simply determined. The fact that he has survived this long under Fischer may serve as proof. Fischer tolerates little at his facility and has reportedly dismissed another former first-round pick from his facility that was attempting to make a comeback. Green, claiming to be down to his college playing weight of 215 pounds, has survived only because he has taken the work seriously.

“I feel fast, I feel quick, I feel strong. My body feels phenomenal. Most important, I’m confident again and my head is in a good place,” Green said. “When I was with the Browns, I didn’t know how to be focused on what I was supposed to do … For so long when I was a kid and I was going through so many problems, I just kept thinking, ‘I’ll be in the NFL one day.’

“I thought being in the NFL would make me happy but it didn’t. I got to the NFL and I didn’t make better decisions. I didn’t find the kind of life I really wanted. Instead, I was more focused on going out and partying, not on what I had to do to be successful.”

Green’s story of tragedy and initial triumph were chronicled long ago. Both his parents died of AIDS when he was a teenager. He had his first child with Asia, his girlfriend of nearly six years before they got married in 2004, when he was in college. The reports of marijuana use go back to his college days.

Now, the 28-year-old Green says the days of him “chasing women and acting irresponsible” are gone. Asia Green, 26, said the claims are worth believing. Her own experience with him has proved that in her eyes.

“It was very hard for me to believe, at first,” said Asia, who met Green when they were in high school together in Absecon, N.J. “But over the past two years, he went from a person I couldn’t trust to a person I have allowed to let go and lead our family.”

In 2003, while Green was serving his suspension and before they were married, Asia tried to “scare” him into paying attention by threatening him with a knife. Green was cut in the incident, although both maintain some of the media’s accounts were overstated. Still, the two were apart for six months afterward.

Now, the couple is creating deeper bonds. They celebrated the birth of their fourth child together three weeks ago. Green returned to their home in Cleveland for a few days to help and then returned to Arizona to finish training. On Sunday, he headed to Boston to get acclimated to the field where he’ll work out Tuesday.

Getting to this point required a lot of Asia. Almost five years ago, Green informed her that he was having a child with another woman. This was before the couple married, but nonetheless heartbreaking for Asia.

“It was definitely a shock and then there was just trying to get through it, the frustration and the hurt,” Asia said. “But I prayed about it and found the strength through God to stay with him. Now, we raise her just like she was mine. There’s no difference.”

Still, the ultimate change for Green took longer. In the summer of 2006, he started to get the message Asia had found before him. Listening to tapes of popular and successful televangelist Dr. Creflo Dollar, Green began to understand that if he was going to make a life with Asia work, he was going to have to embrace God. The couple eventually went to Atlanta to see Dollar, who teaches what he calls “prosperity theology.” They sat in the front row for what Asia described as an “inspiring” sermon.

“William was baptized at that time and the Holy Spirit really touched him,” Asia said.

It was a startling change for Green.

“When you think you have arrived at the answer, it sometimes takes awhile to figure out that you don’t have a real answer. That’s the hardest part, when you work your way through and then discover that this, making the NFL, isn’t the answer,” he said. “I’m at peace with myself now. I come home and my kids are waiting for me and they love me. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I didn’t have when I was a kid.”

Green went to training camp later that summer, but his lot in football at that time was cast. When he injured his quadriceps, the Browns had finally lost patience with him.

He said he didn’t think about going back to the NFL at the time because he was focused on his spiritual life and family. Now, he claims to have that in order and is willing to try the league again.

“Hopefully the Lord will help me have another chance. If that happens, I believe I can be a powerful force,” Green said.