AJPettersen

Injuries are tough to deal with, but they are part of the game of baseball. After playing nearly every day for six months, there are bound to be aches and pains. Some things resolve with rest, while others need medical attention. After this year ended, I had a wrist issue I knew I had to get taken care of. I got an MRI and after meeting with Dr. Steubs (the head Twins doc), I was referred to Dr. Berger at the Mayo Clinic. He is an ulnar sided wrist pain expert, so I was hopeful that he could fix me up. My wife, Emily, and I took the trip down to Rochester on Monday to have an evaluation done. Dr. Berger introduced himself and began feeling around for pain and discomfort. He found a few areas and then looked at the MRI to determine the significance. While wrist pain is often very difficult to diagnose, he told me there was a 95% chance I had a split tear in one of my ligaments called the ulnotriquetral ligament (UT for short). The best way to explain this is with Twizzler's Pull and Peels. Rather than the ligament ripping across the Twizzler's, it was separating the long way. The fibers were tearing and opening like a book. Dr. Berger had performed this operation many times since he invented it eight years ago. He has performed it on baseball players, golfers and many others. I felt fairly confident in his ability to fix the problem so we decided to do surgery on Wednesday. We arrived at the surgery center around 9 am and by 9:30 I had an IV in. The nurse advised my wife to ask questions after she put “truth serum” into my line. An anesthesiologist arrived and explained that the surgery would be performed with a nerve block. She numbed my skin and hooked up an ultrasound machine so she could see exactly what she was doing. She was trying to explain to me what was happening on the screen. All I could think was, "I'm just glad you went to a lot of school to learn how to do this." Once a sufficient amount of numbing medication was injected into the nerves beneath my armpit, she checked the results. She asked me to pull and then push. Eventually she pushed my wrist down and it just flopped, all feeling was gone. Staring at your own arm without sensing it is a very odd feeling. A little later, in the operating room, I was given more sedative drugs and sent off to lala land. I woke up what seemed like 5 minutes later. Dr. Berger came in and said the split tear was deep (picture the binding of the open book falling apart), but he was able to stitch it closed. He also found another small tear in the area and was able to clean it out. He handed me a sheet full of pictures for proof. It appeared to be a bunch of clouds inside my arm, looked like it was about to storm. Again I thought, “good thing he knows what he’s looking at.” I'll be in a post surgery cast for two weeks, followed by four more in a plaster cast and then a removable splint. The doc tried to apologize for the hour and a half drive to get the casts changed, I told him it was a very small price to pay to have him cut me open. I'm not allowed to exercise for two weeks, so Netflix is currently keeping me sane. A healthy dose of pain meds, Parenthood and naps will fill the next few days. I'm lucky to have a wife that takes care of me/puts up with me post surgery (she was also there after the nose smashing incident my first year). I hope you enjoyed the look at an injury from the player's perspective. I'm happy to be on the road to recovery! Follow me through the recovery process and the offseason on Twitter! @APettersen1 You can also follow my wife as she gives a little different take on minor league life @em_pettersen or on her blog emilyandaj.blogspot.com If you have any questions or comments you can email me at ajpettersen1@gmail.com

The Rules: A black cat can be anything someone says that is good about your own team or bad about the visiting team. The opposite will inevitably happen. Example 1: “Our starting pitcher is dicing up the other team today. He’s going to throw a shutout. Black cat. He will give up a run and come out of the game.” Example 2: “This team hasn’t hit a home run in a while, they look awful at the plate. Black cat. They will hit a home run and start squaring balls up.”[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] A white dog is anything bad about our team or good about the other team. Example 1: “We never score first. White dog. We score three runs in the first inning.” Example 2: “These guys crush fastballs. White dog. Don’t hit a fastball hard all day.” If you intentionally black cat someone it turns into a white dog and vice versa. If you black cat someone it is customary to take them out to lunch. I was getting ready for the game, when one of the bullpen pitchers asked who was starting for the other team. I explained that he was a top prospect, but recently had a slew of bad outings and reportedly lost some velocity. As I was talking some other bullpen guys joined in on the conversation. One of them had a look in his eye like I just said something catastrophic. “Black cat!” He yelled. I had no idea what he was talking about, which he figured out from the confused look on my face. After he explained the rules to me, I understood that as far as the bullpen was concerned, I had sealed our fate that day. Superstition has been a part of baseball for a very long time. Some guys wear the same socks or shirts without washing them for days at a time, while others will go to crazy lengths to keep everything the same from past successful games. The black cat/white dog has become an interesting superstition in the Rock Cats bullpen this year. Whether these rules ring true or not, you will have to decide for yourself. A special thanks to Matt Hauser and the rest of the bullpen for their help with this article. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MHauser_17. You can also follow me on Twitter @APettersen1 or email me at ajpettersen1@gmail.com.

​Sorry it has taken me so long to get back on here folks, but I’ll give you my latest news here. Here is a review of the first half. It has been quite a whirlwind. I arrived in Florida with my wife in early January, so I have been doing Twins related activities for a while now. The first change of plans occurred when I found I would be heading to Cedar Rapids to start the season. I was sent down the last week of Spring Training and began to prepare for the trip back up north. In the few days following I got to play with Byron Buxton, which was a treat. The way he goes about his business is impressive and his tool set is off the charts. He is an exciting player to be around.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] I like to say my first promotion was when the trucks were loading up to go to their respective cities. We ship a lot of our items to the cities, so that air travel is less hectic. I was told to take my stuff out of the Cedar Rapids pile because I could be staying in Florida. This was confirmed later in the day. I had been sent down and promoted within a week, minor league baseball can be crazy sometimes. A 12 game win streak, a 24-4 record and a few Sano bombs later and I was heading to Portland, Maine to join New Britain. This was obviously unexpected when the season started, but was a very exciting opportunity. I played a night game in Fort Myers and played the next day at noon in Maine. I arrived in the clubhouse about an hour before the game to find out the pitcher we were facing threw 59-66 MPH. I knew AA would be different, but had they checked their radar gun lately? Charlie Haeger was on the mound-the first predominantly knuckleball pitcher I had ever faced. My dad had been visiting in Florida so he decided to drive my car up the coast (roughly 24 hours) and made it for my second AA game. His reasoning, “this is exciting, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen very often.” Once again, minor league baseball is crazy at times. My wife finished her travel nursing assignment and joined me a few weeks later with our dog. A couple of weeks after that, more friends from Fort Myers joined the Rock Cats. While I haven’t gotten off the best AA start, it has been quite the journey. Sometimes in baseball you have to expect the unexpected. It has been fun getting the chance to play with guys who have been in the big leagues. We faced a pitcher early on, who got his debut a few weeks later. It makes the “Show” seem a lot more attainable. I have seen three knuckleballers, numerous top prospects and some great stadiums. We just got back from Altoona, where a rollercoaster sits beyond right field. Some more highlights have been seeing the hardest ball ever hit (a few nights ago off the bat of Sano) and getting two baseball cards in one season (got promoted at just the right time). I hope to get back on here more often in the coming weeks and look forward to interacting with the Twins Daily community more! Follow me on Twitter @apettersen1 or email me at ajpettersen1@gmail.com. I welcome any and all questions or comments!

When I was younger, my brothers and I loved to play video games. We took a liking to games of all kinds, but especially enjoyed playing baseball games together. Typically we wouldn’t “play” many of the games, we would simulate them. This allowed us to get in a number of seasons in a short amount of time. We would sit for hours in front of the television, hanging on every game in the careers of imaginary players on a screen. It sounds ridiculous, but video games gave us a hope that these players could be us one day. Each of us would usually take a liking to a specific guy. This guy would play a similar style to our game and we would take them from draft day to the Hall of Fame…in a few weeks time. We would imagine ourselves in his shoes, getting called on draft day, debuting in the big leagues, becoming an All Star and a hero for his team. It was wash, dry, fold, repeat.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Every year a new game would come out and we would get our hands on it, spending hours trying to perfect our players and our squad into World Series champions. This has been a way for us to bond as siblings. We still try to play against each other remotely. Over the past few years we have played an online game called Strat-O-Matic Baseball. It was perfect for us because we could play in the same league and the entire game was based on simulation. Recently I stumbled upon a game called Out of the Park Baseball. It too is a game based entirely on simulation, but unlike Strat-O-Matic, it is a comprehensive package. OOTP 14 recently came out and I was given the chance to preview it. If you enjoy Twins Daily’s Prospect and GM Handbooks, you will enjoy this game. While you can sit and imagine what you would do if given the chance to run an organization, this game gives you that opportunity. You control every team to every detail with personalized options available for each player. You control contracts, call-ups and team strategy. The new game added the new rosters for 2013. Free agents can now come from a number of different places-the draft, international signings, independent ball, etc. A new interface makes navigating the game much easier and a new player development tracking system allows you to get a better grip on your farm teams. I thought everyone here at Twins Daily would enjoy it. If you do decide to get the game, be prepared for a possible addiction. I spent a number of hours playing the game right when I got it. I shared this game with my older brother and he immediately began playing. It is a fun way to feel connected to your hometown team and it can also be great way to get to know more guys in the system. If you are interested you can check the game out here: https://store2.esellerate.net/store/checkout/CustomLayout.aspx?s=STR6838997456&pc=&page=OnePageCatalog.htm Follow AJ on Twitter @APettersen1 or email him at AJPettersen1@gmail.com