TAMPA, Fla. — When Joba Chamberlain came on the scene in electric fashion in the second half of the 2007 season, the Yankees were so protective of his health that they devised the so-called Joba Rules, a set of guidelines intended to maximize his talent while avoiding the dangers of throwing too many pitches.
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Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain was injured while playing with his son, 5.
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After a stellar rookie season, Joba Chamberlain was ambushed by a swarm of midges during a loss at Cleveland in the 2007 playoffs.
But in the years that followed, those initial rules did not keep Chamberlain from succumbing to an assortment of pitching injuries. And on Thursday afternoon, Chamberlain was derailed again, but this time while simply trying to be a good father to his 5-year-old son. While jumping with him on trampolines at a children’s play facility in Tampa, Chamberlain suffered a potentially devastating ankle injury that may keep him from pitching in a Yankees uniform again.
The 26-year-old Chamberlain, once viewed as the heir apparent to Mariano Rivera, sustained an open dislocation of his right ankle, with the bone protruding through the skin and causing loss of blood, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said.
Chamberlain was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, where surgery was immediately performed to repair the damage to the ankle and, most important, limit the possibility of infection to the bone, which can be catastrophic for an athlete. The Yankees provided no time frame for Chamberlain’s return because there is a wide range of recovery possibilities for this injury.
But it was clear the team was agonizing over Chamberlain’s misfortune. He had spent spring training working his way back from reconstructive elbow surgery last June, and he and the team were hoping he could return to the majors by the middle of this season.
Instead, his future as a pitcher rests on a tightrope.
“It’s crushing for him,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s difficult. My heart goes out to him.”
Derek Jeter added: “To have something like this, a freak accident, you feel extremely bad for him. Outside of the team, you feel bad for him as a person.”
Chamberlain is expected to remain in the hospital for several more days as doctors monitor his foot and check for infection. If all goes well and there is no infection, Chamberlain could be back pitching again at some point this year.
However, if the bone is infected, he may never be able to run again, much less pitch in the majors.
“That is the nightmare scenario for all orthopedic surgeons and patients, an infection in the bone,” said Dr. Craig Levitz, the chief of orthopedic surgery at South Nassau Communities Hospital and a former assistant to Dr. James Andrews, the noted sports orthopedist.
If there is an infection, Levitz said, “it would be unlikely to ever see him running again.”
“Many people make a full recovery from this, but far from all,” Levitz said.
Levitz said the injury that Chamberlain suffered is often grotesque and can be shocking to see. But he said that the bones generally heal quickly and permanently after surgery, as long as there are no complications, and that patients can be running within two months.
Girardi, who learned of the injury during Thursday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox in Fort Myers, saw Chamberlain during an emotional visit to the hospital Friday morning around 7:30. He recounted to Chamberlain how, in the closing days of Girardi’s career with the Chicago Cubs, he spent three weeks on the disabled list after he injured his back while tossing his daughter into the air.
“Fathers are fathers,” Girardi said.
Given everything that Chamberlain has gone through in recent years — disappointments and demotions in the bullpen, an arrest for driving while impaired, time missed to arm injuries, internal illnesses — and given how close he was getting to pitching competitively again, Girardi said he wanted to check on his psyche when he spoke to him.
“I was worried more about his heart and his mind than anything else,” Girardi said of his hospital visit. “I believe his body is going to heal. The body is meant to heal. But you worry about what a guy is going through.”
When asked how Chamberlain was bearing up, Girardi shrugged and said, “Eh, he’s O.K.,” in a way that seemed to indicate he was not.
Thursday’s accident was the latest, and most serious, setback that Chamberlain has encountered since his quick rise to fame. After the fanfare he immediately created on arriving in the major leagues — in 19 games in 2007 he pitched 24 innings, struck out 34 and allowed just 12 hits while compiling an infinitesimal earned run average of 0.38 — he was ambushed by adversity in a playoff game in Cleveland that October. Pitching with a one-run lead late in the game, he was attacked, and greatly distracted, by a swarm of midges that had flown in from Lake Erie.
Chamberlain lost the lead, and the Yankees lost the game and the series, and nothing was ever quite the same for Chamberlain after that.
During the next few years, he moved back and forth between the bullpen and a starter’s role until he was permanently shifted back into the bullpen in 2010. Then came Tommy John surgery last June, and still more physical problems after that when he had a ruptured appendix and then an abscessed infection in his abdomen.
Through all that, Chamberlain, who is not married, found joy in his relationship with his son, Karter, even taking him to his first day of kindergarten.
“That was the proudest day of my life,” he said earlier this spring. But now, it’s unclear if he can be a competitive pitcher again.
“He worked so hard to get back,” his fellow Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes said. “I know he was really feeling great, and he was so happy to have his son around. I just feel so bad for him.”
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