Jose Guillen, M.D.

The Royals signing of Jose Guillen stands as one of the worst deals of the past few years. Guillen must know that himself, because he’s trying to save the club money in other ways:

Royals outfielder José Guillen expects to return to full-time drills, perhaps by this weekend, after easing the pain in his right big toe by yanking out a severely ingrown nail. The nail was only a slight irritant Monday when Guillen reported to camp but soon worsened from the pounding caused by various workouts. “The doctor saw me (Wednesday),” Guillen said, “and he said we’ll see how it feels in the morning. If it wasn’t any better, he wanted me to have surgery. I thought, ‘Whoaaa.’ “So I went on my own (Wednesday) to the pharmacy, got some tweezers, came home and pulled it out myself. Let me tell you, I cried. I had one tough hour. But I got it out.”

Ewww.

In other news, is there any ballplayer who trusts established institutions less than Guillen does? You’ll recall a few years ago that Guillen eschewed banks in favor of check cashing businesses. Now he seems wary of organized medicine as well.

Of course, given that he was somewhat prescient about the unreliability of banks, maybe we should all be rethinking our health care right now too . . .


8 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
MooseinOhio
15 years ago

That ingrown nail may have landed JD Drew on the 60 day DL.

themarksmith
15 years ago

I’ll give the man some respect. Those things hurt like hell, and when I had one, someone else had to pull it out for me. I’ll admit it—I cried, too.

Nick
15 years ago

It’s nice to see the Royals are starting off the season on the right foot.  BA-DA-BING!

Justin
15 years ago

Sounds like an infection waiting to happen.

Ouch
15 years ago

The first time I had an ingrown, I let a doctor cut it out. I’ve had a couple more since then, and I just did them myself. Costs aside, the only differences between the “surgery” my doctor performed on me and my own hack jobs were the numbing agent and the higher quality cutting tool.

Beanster
15 years ago

The old check cashing article says that “It took about 30 minutes for a store manager to count out $10,000 in cash, police said.”

Let’s say all they had were twenties, does it really take 3.6 sec each to count out 500 bills?  Or is 30 min how long it took some buddies of the Money Mart manager to make it over in DC rush hour traffic?  I’m just saying…

TC Shillingford
15 years ago

I’ve been suffering from an ingrown toenail of crescendoing hostility for about 10 years now, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been considering similarly damaging hackjobs for the past few years.  Mostly I’ve been considering trying to break my toe to knock the nail off, and let the nail try to grow back straight, the way God intended, instead of sideways and into my tender flesh. 

No, I don’t have health insurance, what of it?

Sal Paradise
15 years ago

Do any of these stories involve hooks? I think they’d be ideal to be drawn out into feature length for the baseball chronicle. Bonus points if you’re a Royals Fan, and if you link your ingrown toenail history with that of the team you’re cheering for. Extra bonus points if it started after their last winning season. Super bonus points if you yank it before this season and track the progress of the team versus the toenail.

Who wouldn’t read such a compelling story?