New York Daily Times/Yahoo! Sports:
This season, it was Brian Bruney who emerged as the early-season surprise for the New York Yankees, and he got some very important outs in the seventh and eighth innings during the first three weeks. But Bruney's year just came to a sudden halt, as the reliever found out on Friday that he will need season-ending surgery to repair a tear of the Lisfranc joint in his right foot.
Bruney, 26, visited foot specialist Dr. William Hamilton at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, confirming the team's worst fears. Bruney suffered the injury on Tuesday in Chicago, rolling his foot while running to cover first base.
The Lisfranc injury is uncommon in baseball, although John Olerud suffered the same injury while playing for the Yankees in the 2004 playoffs. Football players have fallen victim to the problem more often, including Giants defensive ends Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck, who both missed significant time with the injury in 2006. Bruney was 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA in 12 games. In 11-1/3 innings, the righthander allowed two runs on seven hits and six walks, striking out 12.
I mean...it figures right?!
As heavy rain approached Kansas City on Wednesday night, New York Yankees manager, Joe Girardi, made a unique last minute decision to scratch the rookie right hander Ian Kennedy in favor of his middle reliever Brian Bruney.
Most people would look at that picture to the right and think it was Bobby Abreu celebrating his two-run home run in last night's game (which it is)...but not so fast!!!Oops!!! Kevin Kernan of the New York Post had this hilarious article (Hat-Tip to My Baseball Bias:
The clubhouse pranks for the Yankees have picked up this spring, and last year's No. 1 pick Andrew Brackman, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, has been hit hard. He walked to his locker yesterday morning to find that all of his sliders, his baseball underwear, had been slit down the middle.
Brackman's Yankees cap suffered a similar fate. Brackman tossed it in the garbage and then saw the worst of the damage. Six pairs of workout shoes, including brand new spikes, had their shoelaces cut by a Pinstriped Jack the Ripper. The laces were sliced tongue to toe right down the middle, so Brackman, who signed a $4.5 million deal, spent a good part of the day re-lacing his shoes.
"Man, they got me good," he said.
The prank war escalated because Brackman fired back on a veteran player.
"If you get hit by a veteran and fire back," one Yankee insider noted, "they come at you 10 times harder."
The word is that you don't mess with relievers LaTroy Hawkins or Brian Bruney. Ian Kennedy told Brackman to "wave the white flag," but the right-hander has yet to do it.
"It's only going to get worse," Kennedy warned.
Hawkins, for his part, said he did not take direct part in yesterday's attack. While looking over the damage, he did say, "My people took care of some business."
"I'm not quitting," Brackman said of the prankster battle.
Asked if he had any advice for the 22-year-old, Hawkins offered, "You got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."
The Yankees and RHP Brian Bruney have agreed on a one-year, $725,000 contract, avoiding arbitration.
