Column: Jered Weaver looks to Kobe Bryant for inspiration

When Jered Weaver wakes up every morning, he’s presented with a new combination of physical impediments.

Pain here, soreness there.

Earlier this week, Weaver told reporters it was no fun dealing with his limitations or the resulting decrease in fastball velocity. Now, reminded of how Kobe Bryant said there was beauty in the obstacles presented by a broken-down body, Weaver was reconsidering.

“It’s funny you bring up Kobe,” the Angels right-hander said. “I’ve been watching him for 20 years and I’m a huge Lakers fan.”

Scheduled to start for the Angels for the first time this season Sunday, Weaver said he has been thinking about “Kobe Bryant’s Muse,” a Showtime documentary that chronicled Bryant’s return from a torn Achilles’ tendon.

“Not only does he inspire his peers in his own profession, but he inspires, I would think, all athletes in general, having come back from stuff he’s come back from,” Weaver said. “To see that documentary, I get the motivation to overcome what I’m dealing with.”

Whether Weaver can do that will be one of the main factors that determine how this season unfolds for the Angels. With the team’s already-flimsy rotation further compromised by Andrew Heaney’s recent move to the disabled list, Weaver will have to resemble the Weaver of old for the Angels to contend in the stacked American League West.

The problem is that Weaver looks finished. Only a few years removed from being considered one of the top pitchers in baseball, he had a career-high 4.64 earned-run average in 2015. He is now 33 and last month was diagnosed with “degenerative changes” in the vertebrae of his neck. The constantly shifting discomfort has prevented him from finding a consistent release point and dropped his fastball velocity into the low 80s.

But Weaver pointed to what can’t be seen as the reason he will be successful.

He is spending more time than ever in the trainer’s room but insisted, “I love it. That’s why I’m the first one here at the stadium.”

Fight lite

There is little buzz about Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Timothy Bradley on Saturday and promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao’s recent anti-gay remarks could be a reason why.

Uh, no.

Here’s why there’s no interest in the fight: Pacquaio’s most recent knockout victory was in 2009 and he looked awful against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year.

And let’s stop pretending boxing fans have ever cared about a fighter’s out-of-the-ring behavior. These are people who pay to watch what are essentially sanctioned assaults. Their threshold for what is morally repulsive is extraordinarily high.

Even the sport’s more intellectually progressive followers are hard to turn off, perhaps even more so. They recognize the optimal social conditions for developing a world-class fighter — poverty and a shortage of career options — are bound to create some personality deficiencies.

Take the example of Pacquiao. He was an impoverished middle school dropout, which is why he literally staked his life and started boxing. The same lack of education that pushed him to excel in one of the most dangerous professions also explains why his views on homosexuality are so primitive.

Boxing fans came to peace with this dichotomy long ago, when they decided their admiration of a fighter’s courage far outweighed their disapproval of a fighter’s ignorance.

A stay-home wing

Jordan Morris is only four games into his professional career, but it’s pretty clear he made the right decision to sign with Major League Soccer instead of the making the leap from Stanford to the German Bundesliga.

Morris, 21, has played four games for the Seattle Sounders, looking uncomfortable on the right wing in his team’s 4-3-3 system. He has taken only three shots and was relegated to the bench in the Sounders’ most recent game.

Follow Dylan Hernandez on Twitter: @dylanohernandez