Add Lucas Duda, Angel Pagan, Domenik Hixon and Mr. Met to the ever-growing list of injured Mets and Giants players, as the two New York teams battle it out for the title of the city’s most disabled franchise.
“I called John [Mara] and proposed a friendly wager as a joke,” said Mets COO Jeff Wilpon. “I didn’t realize his team would respond like that. I don’t actually have the ten grand I bet him, so consider this quote my IOU.”
Always the competitors, the Giants even went as far as to have their players fake injuries, a stunt that caused the NFL to send out a league-wide memo threatening to strip teams of their draft picks if they feign on-field injuries in the future.
Hixon went down later in that same game with a torn ACL and will likely miss the season, an injury that caused NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to hum the hit song “Karma Chameleon” in response on his weekly radio interview.
Star defensive end Osi Umenyiora who was placed on injured reserve before week one with a bruised ego, vehemently denied faking his injury as protest of his contract status, and even went on to say, “I didn’t fake anything. I hurt myself on purpose.”
As far as the Mets go, Duda, one of the team’s few bright spots in a lost 2011 season will miss the rest of the season — which mercifully ends on the 28th — with headaches suffered after crashing into the Busch Stadium outfield wall last week. Pagan is day to day after bonking himself in the head on a backswing, one of his most solid hits of the season.
In the most freakish of the injuries, mascot Mr. Met will also miss time after taking a shot to the head from a Citi Field T-shirt cannon this weekend.
As of right now, the Mets still lead the Giants in hurt players, but it’s only week three of the NFL season, and the Giants feel they have a strong chance of catching up this week against the “dirty” Eagles.
“They won a Super Bowl recently. Just let us have this one,” pleaded Wilpon. “We need something to sell our fans on in the annual apology email.”
