An Incident Provides Time for Perspective

We could go days, weeks or even a year (if the hard-line owners are to be believed) without baseball.

It wouldn’t be as painful as the 12 minutes the game stopped Monday night.

Suddenly this wasn’t about greedy players or untrustworthy owners or angry fans or all of the acrimony building toward Friday’s looming strike date. This was about a person’s health, and the realization that for all the riches these players make to play a sport, theirs is an inherently dangerous profession.

You can scoff at any implications of unfairness the well-paid players feel, but then you see grass and dirt treated with more respect than a human’s condition.

Dodger shortstop Alex Cora, who has been as good a guy as any this year with his unselfish commitment to team’s best interests, tried to steal second base in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tied game with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The throw was high and Arizona’s Tony Womack leaped to grab it as Cora made a headfirst dive toward the base. Womack’s right knee caught Cora in the head. Cora landed with a thud, grabbed his head and then lost consciousness.

While Womack clutched his knee in agony, Cora was motionless, face down on the infield.

When an ambulance entered through the center-field gates, instead of heading straight toward second base it drove around the rubber warning track that encircles the field, coming to a stop near the photographers’ well next to the Dodger Stadium dugout. Workers started to bring a stretcher out to Cora.

I don’t have extensive medical knowledge, but I know that when head, neck or spine injuries are feared the objective is as little movement for the victim as possible. How would transporting him by stretcher across the infield fit that objective?

Finally, some wiser heads prevailed and the ambulance was given the go-ahead to drive across the infield to Cora’s position. Cora, who had regained consciousness, was strapped to a backboard and loaded into the ambulance, which took the direct route out to the centerfield exit.

His wife, Nildamarie, had come onto the field and was trying to reach Alex, but Manager Jim Tracy and relief pitcher Giovanni Carrara restrained her until the ambulance left.

You say you won’t miss baseball with the arrival of football season?

Well, this scene was all too reminiscent of a football game. The worst part of football. The fear of paralysis part of football.

Every time I’m on the sideline of a pro or major college football game I’m amazed that there aren’t more devastating injuries with all of the high-speed, high-impact collisions.

The same goes for baseball, with its 95-mph pitches and broken and lost bats flying around.

The worst football fears came to fruition on a baseball field. The game stopped. So did all of the acrimony, or any thoughts of a pennant race or competition.

The Dodger Stadium fans cheered Womack as he got up and walked around. There were only muted cheers and boos the rest of the night

In a move that was better handled than the ambulance situation, the Diamondvision screen carried an update on Cora’s condition in the middle of the 10th inning. He had a concussion, but full feeling in his hands and feet. The fans cheered.

Cheering at a baseball stadium. It sounded good. And this might be simple, but it’s a worthy goal to keep in mind when the labor negotiations resume.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.