Give athletes this: with enough time and opportunity, they can figure out incredible ways to get injured. True, nothing’s going to top John Smoltz trying to iron a shirt while he was wearing it. Or Clint Barmes trying to carry too much deer meat up a flight of stairs and breaking his collarbone. But Phillies pitcher Brett Myers would like to toss his hat into the ring.

(Myers, seconds before clocking himself in the eye socket. Hey, that story makes as much sense as anything else in this one.)

Or his kid’s hat, anyway. Myers showed up to a rehab start with an injured eye, the whole thing basically swollen shut. For whatever reason, Myers decided that the only logical thing to tell the team was that he had hurt it after his 4-year-old son Kolt threw a baseball at him. No, really, that was his excuse.

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By most standards, the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis was a success. City leaders were falling all over themselves in praise, because that’s what they’re supposed to do any time an event comes to town [it’s called being gracious. try it sometime.–ed].

(The Lothario himself, planning seating capacity for all his daughters.)

But above all else, the entire undertaking is simply a logistical nightmare, one that demands constant attention from multiple levels of suits. One of those suits, predictably, was Bill DeWitt, president of the St. Louis Cardinals. But his quote about the 3-day gala may have revealed a deep, dark secret about his personal life.

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We demand certain things from our athletes, including a singular need to play as much and as often as possible, consequences be damned. What story’s greater than Willis Reed limping out of the tunnel on a severely sprained ankle to help secure the 1970 NBA Finals or David Eckstein winning the 2006 World Series MVP despite having his legs sawed off at the kneecaps?

(Not photoshopped. No sir. This actually happened.)

So when we hear stories like Greg Ellis telling Michael Irvin that DeMarcus Ware would take himself out of the game so Ellis could get more playing time, the alarms start going off. That’s not competitiveness! The balance of the sporting world is upset! Ed Werder has a boner because it’s bad news about the Cowboys!

One tiny problem, though; this is the Internet, where mountains of data about really insignificant stuff like football games gets kept, and fact-checking is really easy. Read more…

Earlier this month, PRO FOOTBALL TALK reported that the Dolphins’ first round draft pick, cornerback Vontae Davis, was arrested in Champaign, Illinois for excessive vehicular noise and driving without a valid license. Yikes. Bad news, right?

(Davis, seen here moments before being arrested for football theft.)

Well, just like the rumors of a failed drug test at the combine, the arrest rumor is false, according to Davis. At his blog on YARDBARKER, Davis says he couldn’t have been arrested in Champaign; he wasn’t even in the same time zone:  Read more…