The greater Savannah area was nutty-cuckoo with Dustin McGowan coverage over the weekend. The Jays' right-hander, decked out in MMA gear, gave a clinic to youngsters on how not to throw a curveball and how to use facial hair to express your innermost hopes and dreams.The Savannah Morning News has the run down on the event, and mentions that McGowan was getting ready to ship off to Dunedin this week, although the Jays aren't letting him pitch for realsies until May.
Also, if you're hankering to see Peaches speak with his delightful aww-shucks Georgia underbite, Savannah's WTOC has video of McGowan answering some pretty lame questions.
Forget about his shoulder...how's Dusty's pancreas?
Incidentally, we noticed that both stories mention McGowan's type 1 diabetes...to which we were left thinking: Huh? Say wha? Did we miss something?
It's plausible that we have heard that McGowan has Type 1 diabetes before, but that it never registered with us. But we can't imagine why it wouldn't have struck us as important before now, especially given the sense of sudden anxiety we felt after we read this. (A search of our blog and the Drunks turned up nary a mention of his condition.)
Not that we want to overreact to the fact that McGowan has this condition, because others have dealt with it effectively over the years. (Journeyman pitcher Jason Johnson, for instance, wears and insulin pump on the mound.) But it raises concerns at the very least about his durability and the likelihood of him being good for 200 innings year-in and year-out.
15 comments:
Are you trying to depress me even more?
I'd heard about the diabetes issue - last season or maybe even before - and it was given as a possible explanation regarding some of his inconsistent performance.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, once diagnosed and treated, his performance improved and he gained a little consistency, so if anything, maybe we should be relieved?
That's the Ack's "hope" spin for the week, anyway.
I remember hearing something about the diabetes issue the first time he wore glasses out on the mound. I think Campbell said something at that point.
Not to beat a dead horse, but my recollection of the story was that Dusty started wearing glasses for certain games because his diabetes impaired his vision in low light, or something --s.
some jays fan you are tao
Yeah, when we read that, it sounded familiar. Maybe it spooked us a little more this time because we're concerned about his health in general.
Ergo: If Shaun Marcum's elbow is healthy, we're less concerned about McGowan's pancreas.
Yeah, he's always had it, I guess it just wasn't reported as much. I think around 2006 he started wearing the insulin pump on the mound, which also coincides with when he started turning it around.
His accent seems perfectly normal to me ;)
Look, I'm a diabetic and as long as there is enough insulin to offset the energy that is incurred from pitching then Dustin will be fine. BUT Diabetes can fuck with your vision and fucks with you in other wyas. Look at Jason Johnson, where is he now? Maybe JP should sign him to a minor league contract!
Don't get us wrong...we've got a history of diabetes in our family, and we've seen it up close.
In everyday life, it is not debilitating, and can be managed effectively through diet and insulin.
But being a big league pitcher isn't everyday life. Towards the end of August, even the healthiest players start to wear down.
Cubs sign Milton Bradley.
I'm headed to a bar to drown my never ending sorrows.
This is really old news actually Tao. At least 2 + years. It was discovered after one of the seasons that he had diabetes which was never known before and was a large part of his inconsistancy in the years prior. Once he was diagnosed with it, he set up a proper diet and has maintained a healthy, stable weight since.
There are more sites then DrunkJays and here, ya know. Battersbox talked about it extensively, at least in the comments section.
Cheers
McGowan was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes just after he had Tommy John surgery in 2004.
There isn't a problem with it since he has doctors and trainers taking care of him.
Don't forget Adam Morrison of the Bobcats and Jay Cutler of the Denver Broncos are also two athletes with type-1 diabetes. There shouldn't be a concern.
Here's some background:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070301&content_id=1822127&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor
Let's try that again: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070301&content_id=1822127&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor ... If the link doesn't work, it's from March 1, 2007 in the bluejays.com archives.
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