For some unknown reason, the Patriots listed Tom Brady on their mandatory NFL injury report every week last year with the following injury: shoulder (probable). Under NFL rules, "probable" means the player is 75% likely to play; "questionable" is 50% likely to play; "doubtful" is 25% likely; and "out" is what you think -- he's not playing. The chance that a 75% possibility would occur 16 straight times is a probability of 0.01; in other words 1%. So the Patriots injury report was rubbish -- there was never a 25% chance Brady would sit and the Patriots claimed him on the injury report as a way to mess with their opponents.
The Yankees seem to have taken a page from the Patriots' playbook, with a different purpose -- to skate around MLB roster rules. First, they stuck Wilson Betemit on the DL with "pink eye" because they needed a third catcher when Jorge Posada's shoulder began acting up. Now, they've placed ineffective starter Phil Hughes on the 15 day DL with an oblique strain, after Mgr. Joe Girardi first claimed that Hughes was fine and then claiming after yesterday's game that the problem arose on Tuesday. Hughes said the ailment became a problem yesterday. Now Hughes can go to Tampa for work with organizational pitching coach Nardi Contreras and not have to suffer the indignity of a demotion.
Pete Abraham, the Yanks' beat reporter for the Lower Hudson News (a Gannett paper), had this snide but accurate statement: "The Yankees face the Tigers tonight trying to avoid being swept. It’ll be Ian Kennedy against Nate Robertson. Kennedy [who's been pretty awful too] better pitch well or he could come down with that strained oblique that’s going around."
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