Zumaya's career in jeopardy

Friday, November 2, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

The news about Joel Zumaya is just awful: He will apparently miss at least half of next season, and probably more. You see the words -- "major reconstruction of the AC joint in his shoulder" -- and you have to wonder if he'll ever be able to throw a fastball at triple-digit velocity again. This season, he came back from an injury to his finger with his velocity in the mid-90s, and was more vulnerable, allowing more earned runs in the last five weeks of the season than he did in the entire second half of 2006. His strikeout ratio dropped from 10.48 to 7.22.

He says it himself, in this piece: "My career could be done." The good news is that doctors found no damage to the rotator cuff, writes Jon Paul Morosi.

The way Zumaya was hurt sounds just like him, writes Michael Rosenberg.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

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