Mets SS Reyes Wary of Marty Feldman's Disease?

This sounds like a joke, but unfortunately, it's not very funny: Mets shortstop Jose Reyes may not only miss part or all of the 2010 season due to an overactive thyroid, he's even at risk of losing his career and worse yet, might actually end up looking like the late, walleyed comedian Marty Feldman.

Yes, really. Feldman -- whose million-dollar, cockeyed glare reminds one of a pair marbles rolling around in a tin can -- was born with normal eyes, but as an adult acquired his familiar, crazed countenance due to the onset of Graves' Disease, an advanced manifestation of thyroid disorder.

If unarrested, and the nature of the "overactive thyroid" is due to Graves' disease or another form of hyperthyroidism, the condition ultimately could cause Reyes' eyeballs to bug out like a bullfrog due to an infiltrative process to the retro-orbital soft tissue structures. With any luck, however, modern medicine should easily enable Reyes to avoid this, but the possibility remains unclear as long a details continue to remain masked in what New York Times columnist Bill Rhoden has called a "great spring mystery."

Perhaps mindful that doom-and-gloom perceptions have a direct impact not only on the turnstile but on advertising, marketing and finance, the Mets give the appearance of carefully managing the news about Reyes.

While the Marty Feldman alternative ending is remote, a number of questions remain unanswered. For instance, why is the team calling for Reyes to rest? Does that mean no baseball activities or confinement to a sick-bed?

When two weeks would be more than enough time to determine whether blood tests have produced a false positive, why is the team allowing for still another month of inactivity if doctors are not anticipating the possibility of removing or destroying his thyroid gland to bring his body chemistry back into sync?

If doctors determine that Reyes's condition cannot be treated with medicine, why hasn't it been acknowledged that thyroid stabilization through radiation or surgery may require months, or even a year or more, before his metabolism returns to normal?

Perhaps most problematic of all, whether two weeks, six or a year, will the layoff cause Reyes a significant setback in his effort to rehabilitate his damaged hamstring? Add to it, he is clearly going to suffer from deconditioning.

It remains to be seen how this "great spring mystery" will conclude.

Jose Reyes 'Comeback' Portends Trouble for Mets

Injured Mets shortstop Jose Reyes' recent workout demonstration may have been good enough for team vice president David Howard and a bevy of metropolitan reporters that showed up for the coverage at Professional Athletic Performance Center in Garden City, N.Y., but the ill-starred superstar still has a long, long way to go before he can be declared fully recovered.

Though Reyes pledged he would be back "100 percent" come opening day, and urged ticket buyers to, "come and see the show," consider a modest word to the wise: Don't believe the hype.

Yes, Reyes was clocked at 3.52 seconds running the distance between home and first base, and he easily darted and dashed left and right as he fielded a series of bouncing tennis balls. In the course of 90 minutes, he bounded and bounced and biked and stretched, all marks of significant progress for a player coming off a second of two surgeries that left him on crutches as recently as the end of October.

But if his was merely a hamstring injury -- plus the complications of a calf strain and inflammation -- that would be one thing. But this is no ordinary hamstring injury, it is a displacement of the hamstring tendon, a critical tear that fundamentally could leave him with a significant impairment of mobility for the remainder of his life, and about which medical experts must remain guarded even in the best of circumstances.

We are in fact ultimately talking about a breakdown -- a disconnection if you will -- of the sophisticated pully system that impacts rudimentary athlectic command over the lower extremities of both legs, both being equal parts of a working tandem. This is the last line between the bone and the hamstring, the disruption of which marks the type of injury one would more easily find in the rodeo bullring, beneath the horses' legs on the turf of a polo match, or in the back of a crashed automobile, having plunged off the escarpment of the Jersey Pallisades.

It can be fixed but with great difficulty, and only after much time, patience, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Thus, the view from here is that Jose Reyes likely will not finish the 2010 season, certainly not without tiresome visits to the trainer's table. Every time he gets hurt -- and he will get hurt -- he will be out four to six weeks. If he injures himself the way he did before, he could be out permanently.

This is not rocket science. Any physician trained in trauma can foresee the potential for trouble because of the very nature of the injury, and because Reyes is not just some stationary lummox who stands at first base merely to take throws from across the diamond, or waits on the bench for a chance to pinch hit. We are talking about a finely tuned, high-powered little sports car of a man who trades on speed, hustle, daring and precision carburation and rack and pinion steering.

To be effective, he must have unfettered dominion over all his talents, tools and skills., particularly as he approaches the potential zenith of his prowess at his 27th birthday in June.

With hot-and-cold hitting Jason Bay's medical condition having been disparaged by Red Sox doctors, with Carlos Beltran set to miss the opening of the season with another knee problem, and David Wright having struggled to hit even a mere dozen home runs last year, it looks as though another long, long season may be in the offing for Jose Reyes and the Mets.

Jose Reyes Lifts Mets Steals Toward Top Rankings

With speedster Jose Reyes on pace to steal more than 60 bases this season, the Mets have 79 so far as a team, second only in the majors to the Rays with 96. At the same time the Mets have allowed the fewest steals in the majors, just 30.

Meanwhile, the reports of first baseman Carlos Delgado's death have been greatly exaggerated, with the slugging Puerto Rican having hit four homers with 15 RBI in his last 10 games.

Jerry Manuel Might Be Insane

New York Mets interim manager Jerry Manuel wasted no time showing his players who's boss.  One batter into his first game, he was forced to remove Jose Reyes because of a tight hamstring.  When Reyes tried to stay in the game, Manuel did what any rational human being would do -- threaten to stab Reyes:

"I told him next time he does that I'm going to get my blade out and cut him.  I'm a gangster. You go gangster on me, I'm going to have to get you.  You do that again, I'm going to cut you right on the field," said Manuel.

Jeeeeesus.  Four minutes into the game and he's threatening to murder his superstar. It's too bad Manny Ramirez is not on the Mets.  Who wouldn't want to see Manuel react when Manny cuts off a throw from his own center fielder, interrupts the game to urinate in the green monster, or high fives an opposing fan in the middle of a play?  

If Jose Reyes is going to get stabbed next time he doesn't want to come out of the game, will Billy Wagner be summarily executed after his next blown save?  This guy is great.  Major League Baseball needs more Jerry Manuels, and so does every other sport.