On today’s Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney podcast on ESPN, Buster had Karl Ravech on.
Karl, along with the ESPN crew, is touring the Florida Spring Training complexes…,
.@SportsCenter on the road in Sarasota, visiting our guys at Ed Smith Stadium. #OrangeSpring pic.twitter.com/U7tTdrfEXy
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) February 24, 2015
…and had some kind words about Ed Smith Stadium:
"Ed Smith Stadium, the Augusta National of Spring Training" – @karlravechespn
— Kristen Hudak (@kristenmhudak) February 24, 2015
Ravech reported to Olney that he had had a conversation with Manny Machado, where Manny told him some privileged information. According to Ravech, “[Manny] has not said this to anybody before.”
“He confided to us,” Ravech said, “that after that first knee injury, he said that the doctor told him that his other knee was going to suffer a similar result. The same thing was going to happen again, to his healthy knee, because of the way his kneecaps, literally were formed from birth.
It was a predisposition. So he knew that at some point in his life – usually, given the activity of a baseball player – during his baseball career, that he was going to suffer another devastating knee injury. He didn’t tell anybody that, but he knew, and I guess now you find out that the Orioles, to some degree, and Buck, knew about it.”
Ravech then asked Manny why, if they knew that it was likely going to happen to the other knee, that they didn’t preemptively do the surgery on the non-injured knee during the 2013-14 offseason.
“He said like everyone, well, why doesn’t every pitcher just have TJS before they throw a baseball? You don’t do it.”
The best news, though is that, according to Ravech, Machado and the doctors believe that, after both surgeries, his knee injuries are a thing of the past.
You can listen to the interview here (go to about the 10:00 mark).
