Major League Baseball Pitcher Injures Himself Cooking Crawfish For Teammates

Professional athletes must be more mindful of their bodies than those of us who need only a few key-tapping fingers to fulfill our job duties. So when their sports are in season, athletes usually refrain from certain potentially risky behaviors: cliff-diving, ATV races, heli-skiing, and cooking Cajun dinners.

The latter is apparently more dangerous than we thought, as MLB.com reports Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly was scratched from a scheduled appearance last week after he hurt his back in the process of cooking a crawfish, chicken, and red beans and rice dinner for his teammates. The crawfish boil reportedly took five hours, during which time Kelly stood over the stove stirring, injuring his back.

"I have to keep him away from the stove," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told MLB.com. "We'll keep him away from the jambalaya."

Last month, Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo was sent home from a spring-training game because he had a stomach issue, reportedly from eating undercooked chicken he'd prepared for himself. Maybe Rob Manfred should shift his focus from debating the pitch-clock issue and implement mandatory league-wide cooking classes.

As more of a football fan myself (New York Giants!), I know that neither crawfish-boiling strain nor undercooked-chicken barfing comes even close to clearing the bar for dumbest (and most severe) pro-athlete injury.