Hope for Brandon Wood, empathy for John Lackey and support for MLB chitchat

By Tim Heaney on May 13, 2011

I was going to write some jokes about how John Lackey's fastballs were as dead as Osama Bin Laden but was reminded that baseball probably isn't the first thing on the vet's mind. Off-field issues, like, as Lackey hinted, possible complications from his wife's battle with breast cancer, weigh on players. Yogi was right about the mental part. We've seen in recent years how battles away from the diamond hindered Magglio Ordonez, Kurt Suzuki, A.J. Burnett and others.

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