Vaughn Has Time to Reflect on Injury

Mo Vaughn played most of the 1996 season with a broken middle finger on his right hand, batting .326 with 44 home runs and 144 runs batted in for the Boston Red Sox.

So when the Angel first baseman heard a pop in his left elbow while swinging at a pitch last August, he didn’t think much of it. He played through pain before--he missed only one game in 1996--so he got some treatment, wrapped the elbow tightly and played every day in August and September.

One season-ending elbow surgery later, he wishes he would have used less machismo and more common sense last summer.

“I’ve looked at this so many times and thought, ‘Am I that hardheaded? Am I that stupid that I can’t stop playing?’ ” Vaughn said Wednesday in his first public comments since undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured biceps tendon on Feb. 6.

“But I don’t know any other way to do it. I don’t like going to the doctor, I don’t like ice, I don’t like medicine. I had missed so much time in 1999 [because of a severe ankle sprain] that I didn’t want to sit out.”

Vaughn, who swung by the Angels’ spring-training complex Wednesday, said he never realized how serious the injury was, and it’s not his nature to complain to trainers. But when he began his winter workouts in November and the knot in his elbow wouldn’t go away, he finally spoke up.

An MRI test in December revealed the injury, and during a 2 1/2-hour procedure at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, doctors removed part of an Achilles’ tendon and used it to attach the elbow tendon to his biceps muscle in the two spots where it had torn off.

“It’s just some body parts,” he said, shrugging off the severity of the operation. “I’ll be fine.”

There was some question as to whether Vaughn, who was treated for tendinitis in the final two months of 2000, was misdiagnosed, but he did not point fingers at the Angels’ medical staff.

“You can’t blame anybody,” said Vaughn, who hit .272 with 36 home runs and 117 runs batted in last season. “It’s not the Angels’ fault, it’s not anyone’s fault. These trainers have been great since I’ve been here. It’s just one of those things that happens and isn’t detected. I just have to move on.”

Not too fast, though. His arm will be immobilized for several more weeks, and he will begin a long and grueling physical rehabilitation process in April. He hopes to begin swinging a bat again in September and return to the Angels in 2002.

In addition to the physical demands of therapy, Vaughn, who is in the third year of a six-year, $80-million contract, must cope with the mental duress of being sidelined.

This is a guy who hates coming out of the lineup. When Manager Mike Scioscia gave him a day off last July 25--the only game he didn’t play all season--Vaughn marched into the manager’s office for an explanation. “He looked at me like I had three heads,” Scioscia said.

Vaughn will need to find an outlet for that frustration.

“I wish I could put a headset on, watch the games on TV and tell the guys what pitches are coming,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, no doubt, because I’m used to playing baseball every day. But it makes you respect the game, and it will make me put more effort into it when I get back.”

Vaughn will remain in Arizona during spring training, and he will work with new Angel physical therapist Brian Scherr in Anaheim when the season starts. He said he will pop into the Angel clubhouse on occasion and perhaps join the team on a trip, but he won’t be a constant presence.

“I don’t want to lose touch with the guys, but I also don’t want to bring the team down by having them see me,” he said. “That’s just another reminder that I’m not here, that I can’t play. With everything that’s happened here in the past, this team has had enough negativity.”

If there is one positive for Vaughn, it’s that he has a better idea of why he hit .198 with 39 strikeouts in 111 at-bats last September.

“I racked my brain many times last year, looking at video, looking at how I was set up in the batter’s box, and the fact of the matter is, I was swinging with one hand,” he said. “I’m looking forward to getting healthy and coming back with two arms.”