When It Comes to Warts, Seems Everyone Has Cure

A woman from Baltimore called The Sun sports department with a cure for Mike Mussina’s wart.

“He should spit on it,” she said.

Careful there. Spitting is still a sore subject in some corners of the Orioles clubhouse.

“But this works,” the woman said. “He should spit on it every day, first thing in the morning, before he brushes his teeth. The acids in his stomach will eat away the wart.”

A woman from Pennsylvania left a voice-mail message at the Orioles offices offering a cure that also used acids -- but with a method of application that was, ah, different.

“He should urinate on the wart,” she said. “It really works.”

Those were just two of the many cures that have been received by The Sun and the Orioles via phone, fax, mail and e-mail since Mussina went on the disabled list last week with a wart on the index finger of his pitching hand.

Out of nowhere, warts and their cures have become a major topic of discussion around town. Suddenly, you’re on the outside looking in if you don’t have a wart history and/or remedy.

And if you can’t help Mussina with his bloody blotch, well, what good are you?

You could see such a response coming, of course, as soon as Mussina’s injury became public knowledge. Fans can’t help a player with a torn labrum, shredded anterior cruciate ligament or any other injury requiring top doctors, surgeons and specialists. But an ugly, ol’ wart? That’s the ultimate cheap-seats ailment, a common problem with a multitude of home-grown cures.

It’s as if Mussina went on the DL for acne, gas or male pattern baldness. Was there ever a doubt that the switchboards and e-mail baskets would rumble to life?

The chances of Mussina actually using any of the cures are slim, of course, unless the treatment he received last week doesn’t work. (The wart was frozen with liquid nitrate.) But that treatment has failed Mussina before, so it might again.

If that happens, the Orioles might just give up on medical science and go with ... cod liver oil.

That suggestion was e-mailed to the Orioles from someone who said he was a 48-year-old Dodgers fan and “a personal friend of George Brett.” Rub cod liver oil on the wart five times a day, he suggested, and it will disappear.

“Then you can send my kid a ball,” he wrote.

Nothing is free, in other words, not even in the wart biz.

The most masochistic cure came in another e-mail to the Orioles. (Front-office staffer Spiro Alafassos monitored the online incoming.) Put one drop of nitric acid on the wart every few days, it was suggested, then shave off the blistering skin with a razor blade. Included was what to do “if there is too much bleeding or burning.”

Sounded more like a tribal sacrifice than a cure for a wart.

Let’s see someone persuade Mussina to use that one.

Actually, a number of cures involved burning the wart with bleach, carbolic acid and tiny “acid pads.” No other mention of razor blades.

“Don’t put the acid on any good skin!” wrote an 86-year-old great-grandmother in a letter to The Sun.

Hard to argue with that logic.

Most of the cures were, um, less severe.

“Cut a raw onion in half and rub it on the wart,” wrote a man from Williamsport, Pa., in an e-mail to the Orioles.

Then take the part of the onion you used, put it on a hamburger and eat it.

Just kidding, sort of.

A man from Denver, Pa., e-mailed the Orioles with a cure that had worked for his wife: take one vitamin A pill and one “garlic and parsley” pill every day for two weeks.

Only one problem: a case of garlic breath powerful enough to stagger a bull. Not good for clubhouse chemistry.

A local doctor whose credentials should be checked e-mailed the Orioles suggesting a treatment of ground-up poison ivy paste. (Don’t put it on any good skin!)

A pharmacist in Minnesota suggested a “safe, non-caustic” cream that his pharmacy just happened to sell.

A lawyer from Baltimore said to go absolutely nuts taking vitamin A.

There was a whole host of herbal cures, homeopathic cures and natural medicine cures. Talking nicely to the wart, that sort of thing.

One woman said to rub a penny on the wart and then lose the penny.

Mussina can afford it, that much we know.

Then there was the potato lobby, united in their support of the oldest home-grown cure: rubbing a potato on the wart and burying the potato under a tree.

Mussina mentioned last week that he had heard of that solution, but that it wasn’t in his plans. The potato lobby roared to the defense of their remedy.

“It really works at least sometimes,” wrote one e-mailer to The Sun, citing the example of an elementary school music teacher. Three or four others supported the cause similarly.

Maybe Mussina should try it late one night, after a game, when his team of doctors and specialists aren’t around. That’s when warts are cured, it seems.

And if that remedy doesn’t work, there’s always spitting in the morning.