Player Injuries During Cal Ripken's Streak

Cal Ripken, Jr. Autograph on a 1987 Topps (#37)

During Cal's Streak there has been tons of injuries. Here are some of the stranger ones.

This is from an article by Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service.

In what must be considered the quintessential modern athlete injury, Tony Gwynn missed a couple of games after he smashed his thumb in the door of his luxury car. While going to the bank.

• Rickey Henderson missed several games because of frost- bite. In August.
• Vince Coleman missed the 1985 World Series when he got rolled up in the tarp machine.
• Pascual Perez missed a start in Atlanta when he circled the city for more than two hours searching for the exit ramp from Highway 285 to Fulton County Stadium.
• Kevin Mitchell strained a muscle while vomiting.
• Twins farmhand David Foster was knocked out for the season when a lightning strike through a phone line zapped him while he was making a call.
• Pitcher Steve Foster injured his shoulder knocking over milk bottles during a segment with Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show."
• Wade Boggs missed several games after straining his back while pulling on his cowboy boots.
• Paul Molitor dislocated a knuckle when it got stuck in another player's glove.
• Milwaukee's Dave Nilsson missed part of this season with Ross River Fever, a mosquito-borne virus that annually affects 200 out of Australia's 17 million residents.
• Twins general manager Terry Ryan required dozens of stitches when he was scouting a game and a bat flew out of the hitter's hands, sailed through a space in the backstop and struck him in the forehead.
• Pitcher Jeff Juden had a start early in the 1994 season pushed back after getting an infection from a tattoo.
• Outfielder Bret Barberie missed a game when he accidentally rubbed chili juice in his eye.
• Ken Griffey Jr. missed a game after his protective cup slipped and pinched a testicle.
• Doc Gooden missed a start when Coleman accidentally hit him with a golf club in the Mets' clubhouse.
• Mark Portugal missed a start because of food poisoning from eating bad mahi-mahi.
• Pitcher Steve Sparks dislocated his shoulder while tearing a phone book in half.
• Reliever Larry Anderson strained a rib muscle getting out of a Jacuzzi.
• Pitcher Ted Power pulled a hamstring jumping off the bullpen bench to join a brawl.
• Kent Hrbek missed the final 10 games of the 1990 season when he sprained an ankle while wrestling with a clubhouse attendant.
• Florida's Randy Veres hurt his hand pounding on a hotel room wall trying to get the people in the next room to quiet down.
• Dennis Martinez injured his arm tossing his luggage onto the team bus. He was diagnosed with Samsonitis.
• Chris Brown missed a game with a strained eyelid after sleeping on an eye a funny way.
• Former Seattle shortstop Rey Quinones was unavailable as a pinch-hitter because he was in the clubhouse playing Nintendo.
• Terry Harper (OF-Atlanta) Injured his shoulder after giving another player a high five.
• Greg Harris (RP-Texas) injured his shoulder trying to flick sunflower seeds into the stands from the Bullpen.
• Baltimore's Mark Smith was hurt when he stuck his hand in an air conditioner to see why it wasn't working properly. As if the Orioles would let Ripken test the air conditioner?