Great Moments in nasal congestion

If you believe in signs and portents, it’s going to be a long year for Braden Looper:

The Milwaukee right-hander was scratched from his Cactus League debut after feeling tightness in his left oblique muscle near the end of his bullpen warm-up.

Looper, signed as a free agent just before the start of spring training, said he first felt a twinge in his side after he sneezed earlier in the week but didn’t think twice about it . . .

. . . When told Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage once went on the disabled list after a sneezing-related injury, Looper said, “He’s always been a hero of mine, actually.”

If you win 20 in the show, you can pull an oblique sneezing and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, it means you’re kind of a kook.

(thanks to tHeMARksMiTh for the link. By the way, my blogroll is totally out of date and I need to fix it. Until I do, know that tHeMARksMiTh writes here now, not at the place I have linked below. Sorry Mark, I’ll get it fixed this week. See, I sprained my site-editing finger in a coughing fit, so I just haven’t been able to get to it).