Playing the game the right way

Originally Published: June 20, 2006
By Jerry Crasnick | ESPN.com
Before Ben Roethlisberger and Kellen Winslow indulged their inner Hell's Angel, Aaron Rowand was just as unpredictable on two wheels. After the 2002 season, Rowand was riding his dirt bike in the California desert when he lost contact with a trail, fell off a 25-foot drop and landed in a dry riverbed.

Rowand suffered a broken shoulder blade, a punctured lung and two broken ribs in the accident, and cracked his helmet. The damage would have been even worse if he hadn't landed on the best possible place -- his head.

It's an anatomical article of faith in the Rowand household. Through the years, as Aaron fell off skateboards and bicycles and careened from this asphalt playground to that concrete surface, his most valuable attribute was an industrial-strength noggin.


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Jerry Crasnick | email

ESPN.com MLB Sr. Writer
  • ESPN.com senior writer
  • Author of "License to Deal"
  • Former Denver Post national baseball writer

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