The Dog Days of New York Baseball

Edwin Díaz, the New York Mets’ All-Star closer, is no stranger to unusual injuries. A couple of years ago, he tore the patellar tendon in his right knee while jumping up and down to celebrate a win in the World Baseball Classic. Still, the condition he described after exiting a game in late April was one for the books. “Yesterday, my legs—one was longer than the other one,” he said, offhandedly, before adding that a trainer had “fixed it.” Asked to elaborate, he replied, “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He just did it, and I was feeling better after.” His quotes circulated widely, shared by bloggers and fans on social media with a bit of puzzlement and delight but with little follow-up or explanation. The real story was perhaps not so strange—there was, evidently, a strength imbalance in his hips—but his more startling description probably seemed plausible enough to those who root for his team. Of course one of Díaz’s legs was longer than the other. He is, after all, a Met.