With apologies to Charlie Sheen — who is about a week away from having his own top five list — Josh Beckett’s freak concussion (not Sheen’s CNN interview) was the craziest thing we saw Monday. Apparently, a Red Sox staffer, standing in the outfield and hitting (not throwing) balls back toward the infield during batting practice, had one get away from him and nail Beckett in the head. Beckett will be fine, the Red Sox say. The staffer? Not so much. “I called him a dumb [expletive],” Terry Francona said. Well then … 5 » In 2005, Colorado shortstop Clint Barmes, hitting .329 and running away with the NL rookie of the year award, broke his collarbone while lugging a package of deer meat up the stairs. He missed two months.
4 » Brewers pitcher Steve Sparks was so fired up during a motivational speaking seminar that he tried to tear a phone book in half — and wound up dislocating his shoulder in the process.
3 » Big Glenallen Hill could hit the ball a mile. But he’s also infamously known to suffer from arachnophobia. Hill once tumbled out of bed and crashed into a glass table while having a nightmare about being covered in spiders.
2 » Braves ace John Smoltz denies it ever happened — “That is the most false thing I’ve ever heard,” he told the Sporting News in 1996 — but somewhere along the line, a rumor was started that he burned himself … while ironing a shirt … while he was wearing it.
1 » Left-handed knuckleballer Charlie Hudson won five games his entire career. But in 1973, he accomplished the rarest of feats: Hudson accidentally shot himself in the middle finger of his pitching hand while cleaning his .38 revolver. He missed seven weeks.
