Horner Doubts He’ll Be Ready for Opening of Braves’ Camp

Atlanta Braves third baseman Bob Horner isn’t optimistic that he’ll be ready to play at the start of spring training even though the cast has been removed from his broken right wrist.

“I doubt I’ll be in West Palm Beach for the start of spring training,” Horner said after the cast was removed Thursday. “I’m hoping I can be there by the middle of spring.

“There’s just no reason to go to spring training unless I can get something accomplished. I would feel much better staying here, working with the doctor and therapist, who know what’s best for me,” he told The Atlanta Constitution in an interview from his Dallas home.

The cast was removed in Dallas by Dr. Peter Carter, who performed surgery last Dec. 18 on Horner’s navicular bone, implanting a screw and a bone graft from Horner’s hip.

Braves General Manager John Mullen had said earlier that he was optimistic about Horner’s return. “Everything couldn’t be looking better,” Mullen said.

But Georgiann Lassiter, the Dallas physical therapist who will supervise Horner’s rehabilitation, said Carter wasn’t predicting when Horner could swing a bat.

“We took a lot of X-rays and all of them look very good, but we are making no predictions on when he will swing a bat,” Lassiter said. “There were some things written and said that Dr. Carter felt Bob would start swinging a bat two or three months after the cast was removed. We are denying that strenuously. It’s hard . . . there is no way to predict how his wrist will react to these things.”

Horner’s wrist has been in a cast since June 4 of last year. He originally broke the bone Aug. 15, 1983, and missed the last seven weeks of that season. He broke the same bone May 30, 1984, and missed the rest of the 1984 season.

Lassiter said therapy for Horner will start lightly. “He will do some very specific exercises to regain his movement in the wrist,” she said. “This is a period where we’ll work slowly and carefully because the cast has been on so long.

“The initial therapy won’t be strenuous, and there won’t be any weight lifting.