Gretzky May Be Out for Season : It Hurts Every Time It Happens

After Wayne Gretzky’s doctor narrowed it down that Wayne will be out of action somewhere between 20 minutes and 20 years, I made my regular visit to my local Hallmark card shop.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the clerk said. “But we’ve totally run out of Get Well, Superstar greeting cards.”

The Great Gretzky, bad back. Darryl Strawberry, bad back. Larry Bird, bad back. Bo Jackson, bum hip. Joe Montana, bum elbow. Magic Johnson, deadly virus. Bill Shoemaker, paralysis. Anybody calls a news conference these days, I’m almost afraid to go.

Here in Los Angeles, we’ve seen the best of Dodgers incapacitated--Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser, Eric Davis. We’ve seen the best Clippers lose an entire season--Danny Manning, Ron Harper. We’ve seen UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon be laid up and quarterback Wayne Cook go down. Tim Brown has a big game for the Raiders--he gets hurt. Todd Lyght has one for the Rams--he gets hurt.

Everybody gets hurt these days except boxers.

Wayne Gretzky, Encino man, can walk upright and sit upright, but he can’t lean forward without pain. Now you know why Bruce McNall collects coins. Coins don’t depreciate. Hockey players, football players, horses, the older they get, the less valuable they get. McNall’s own body, meanwhile, is in the approximate physical condition of a sportswriter’s, yet he’s never looked healthier in his life.

McNall needed this latest Gretzky business like he needed to get struck with a puck. His other priceless North American property, Raghib (Rocket) Ismail of the Canadian Football League, recently demonstrated his concern for the safety of professional athletes by stomping with both feet atop a fellow player’s skull. Now his favorite hockey player has been hurt before the season has even begun.

They tell me when the Kings put tickets on sale last week, people lined up outside the window as though Neil Diamond had agreed to mud-wrestle with Madonna. Hockey is a hot ticket in this town and has been since that fateful day four years and one month ago when Gretzky was diverted from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a couple of warm bodies and enough money for Alberta to offer to buy British Columbia from the British.

King Wayne has been a model citizen. Good neighbor. Team captain. Family values. But his hockey club is not one whit better now than it was when he arrived. It simply draws better.

The team is naturally concerned that if it cannot win with Wayne, how can it win without him? The new suits, Mlakar, Beverley & Melrose--and nice suits they are, incidentally--must remind their employees that the Pittsburgh Penguins were without Mario Lemieux (Gretzky East) for part of one season and lost Coach Bob Johnson the next season and still won Stanley Cups back to back.

Yet they have good reason to be anxious. Who’s going to replace Gretzky--Tony Granato? Tony Granato’s sister? She plays hockey in Europe. I suppose it’s too late to call Quebec and inquire about Eric Lindros. First time McNall backs off going after somebody and now we could use him. At this rate, the Kings won’t win the NHL until Gretzky’s week-old baby skates a shift.

Gretzky’s doctor says his herniated thoracic disk or hi-fi compact disk or whatever it is (that medical lingo loses me) does not require surgical repair but is so unpredictable that there is “no reason to even speculate” whether Wayne can practice a few figure-eights and loop-de-loops anytime soon or if he should be looking for part-time work as a mannequin. Backs are backs. They’re tricky. Maybe Gretzky will lie on his belly by the bench, like Bird.

He’s in for a “trunk-straightening, posture-realigning” program, the doctor said. If they send him to Sears, they’ll also check Gretzky’s lining and brakes. Wayne says he would appreciate it most if the public refrains from bombarding him with home-remedy treatments--he is seeing a team of specialists, so please, just save those “rub your back with honey and sleep on a bed full of bumblebees” prescriptions, eh?

Whatever caused Wayne’s whiplash--one cheap-shot check or years of wear and tear--is irrelevant, but Gretzky did make another appeal to his peers Tuesday to put a stop to the Rambo-on-ice tactics that threaten to put the game’s greatest attractions out of commission. He said: “The game is getting bigger and faster and the hitting from behind is getting to be more and more harmful. We can’t eliminate the people who sell tickets.”

He wasn’t being selfish. He wasn’t being a wimp. Wayne Gretzky might be getting weaker, but being older, he is also wiser. His kind of hockey player is an endangered species and so is he. Get well, Wayne. We need you and I don’t just mean the Kings.