Sorry, Fernando: Bo Is the Comeback Player of Year

On television I hear it, on the radio talk shows, in restaurants. Every time Fernando Valenzuela retires the side in order somebody says he has to be the comeback player of the year.

I am incredulous. Valenzuela, after being out of baseball for virtually two seasons, has had an impressive run. His last six starts in July, Valenzuela posted an earned run average of 1.28. He was 4-0, had a scoreless streak of 24 2-3 innings. He was the first pitcher to shut out the omnipotent Toronto Blue Jays this season. He didn’t allow a run in three straight starts, which made him the first Orioles pitcher to do so since Jim Palmer in 1978.

Valenzuela is not, however, major-league baseball’s comeback player of the year. He’s not close. There shouldn’t even be a debate. Bo Jackson is baseball’s comeback player of the year.

He’s baseball’s comeback player of the decade. If he strikes out every single at-bat from now until October, he’s still baseball’s comeback player of the year. Last anybody checked, Fernando Valenzuela had all his basic body parts.

Bo Jackson, in case you forgot, is missing a hip. There’s no physical function related to baseball a man can perform without using his hips. When he injured his left hip in a 1991 NFL playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals, a degenerative condition of the hip bone developed and he had to have hip-replacement surgery.

It was unthinkable he’d ever play football or baseball, professionally, with his left hip fastened together by polyethylene and cobalt chrome. As fine a season as Fernando is having, it isn’t unprecedented. Virtually every year some pitcher who was once very good has a resurgence after essentially disappearing from view because of arm troubles.

Nobody, as far as I know, has played with an artificial hip. Even when the season started, people close to (or within) the White Sox organization wondered if Bo could get 250 at-bats. Nobody could envision him running, sliding, fielding or generating enough motion from the hip to power a baseball.

During spring training, Bo running out a grounder was a grotesque sight. James Andrews, Bo’s orthopedist, told Sports Illustrated, “I hold my breath watching him.” Nobody knew what to make of his attempt to play because nobody had ever attempted it. Doctors, though not Bo’s, said every time Bo does something on a baseball field he runs the risk of the femur popping out of the joint, or the metal rods in his artificial hip beginning to bend, or the hip’s mooring in bone breaking off.

The potential exists that should such an accident occur, doctors would have nothing left with which to attach a new artificial hip. White Sox manager Gene Lamont, who didn’t play Bo much at all until July, said, “You do cringe a bit,” when Jackson takes chances on the field. Who could blame Lamont?

With all that uncertainty, with all that risk, Bo Jackson hit a home run in his first plate appearance of the season. Opposite field. Go ahead, name something more dramatic that’s happened this season. Bo has one home run this season of more than 470 feet. To dead center.

He has scored sliding, he has played the outfield, he has won games in the bottom of the ninth, once with two out. Since George Bell went on the DL a few weeks ago, Bo Jackson has been the every-day DH for the AL West-leading White Sox. Not every fifth day, every single day.

I don’t want to hear a word about the batting average. The beloved Cal Ripken, whose hips presumably are the ones God gave him, is hitting all of .009 higher. For my money, Bo could have retired after his first at-bat of the season -- the home run against the Yankees -- and still won comeback player of the year.

The shortsighted seamheads who worship stats and only stats argue that Bo has had one good month: July, when he drove in 20 runs. First, it’s the only month he played regularly. Second, what do you think Fernando has had? That’s right, one good month, the same July.

It’s a wonderful story, Fernando’s comeback, his falling completely from view, going back to his roots in the Mexican League.

But who outside of Bo and the people with a vested interest in his playing believed he’d play again in the majors? Every day of every season we hear some professional athlete say he’s playing for the love of the game, not the money, and often we don’t believe one word of it.

Bo Jackson is risking his ability to walk every single time he puts on a uniform. Fernando Valenzuela is taking no such risks. The last comeback that was as inspiring as Bo Jackson’s was Tony Conigliaro’s.

Fernando’s comeback is about baseball and pitching. Bo Jackson’s comeback is nothing short of a medical and technological and athletic miracle. Real sports fans, regardless of rooting loyalties, need to appreciate the difference.