Professional athletes are some of the most finely-tuned, muscular, and fittest human beings on the planet. Football players are even tougher than most athletes considering the strenuous and physically demanding nature of their sport. That’s why it’s surprising, and almost laughable, to read about DeAngelo Hall’s latest injury. Hall missed his second straight game last week because of a sprained knee. He’s already been listed as “out” for Sunday’s game against Oakland but now there’s a new injury bothering him:

Hall got so excited standing on the sidelines during the Washington Redskins’ overtime loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday that he developed back spasms, another setback in his goal of returning to the field in time to play in this week’s game against the Oakland Raiders.

“I probably should have been up in the suites relaxing, but I wanted to be down there with my teammates and encourage my guys on,” said Hall, who had a sit in a chair to ease the strain on his back while meeting with reporters this week. “I found myself almost jumping up and down every play.”

I’m guessing all the jumping up and down didn’t help the strained knee either. I’m not doubting the legitimacy of the injury, I’m just having a laugh over the circumstances through which he incurred the problem. If it weren’t such a business, I’m sure he would too. Considering the Redskins won’t have Hall or Haynesworth on Sunday, the Raiders will have a legitimate shot at winning the game. Matter of conjecture, Bruce Gradkowski could be a solid fantasy football option at quarterback; he’s thrown for six touchdowns in the last three games. Luckily I don’t have to worry about Gradkowski since I have Tony Romo going as my QB in the Coors Light fantasy football league, but if I needed an alternate option, I might consider Bruce.

You know what a big fan of weird sports injuries I am, so when I heard about this one I knew it made the cut. Reds left fielder Chris Dickerson is part of a platoon along with Jerry Hairston Jr. but he hasn’t seen much action lately since the team has faced a bunch of lefties to start the year. He wasn’t scheduled to play on Saturday because left-hander Paul Maholm was starting for the Pirates, but he would have been unavailable anyway:

Dickerson’s attacker struck Saturday morning as he headed to Great American Ball Park. The lurking evil was a revolving glass door at the downtown hotel where he is staying. He apparently banged his head on the door as it swung around.

“My ‘real’ story is I hit my head on the rim during a celebrity slam dunk contest,” Dickerson joked. “They do need to do something about that door. It’s a deathtrap waiting to happen. I can only imagine what happens with people less coordinated than me. I’m a little clumsy, but a pretty coordinated guy. I should be able to fly through that thing easy. I struggle with it every day.”

At least he has a good humor about it. Dickerson’s only had six at-bats this year but he has two hits. I’m sure he’ll have plenty more chances to hit as the season goes on. Last year he mashed in just over 100 at-bats so bright days should lie ahead for him. And on a personal note, it’s comforting to know that one of the toughest outs you ever faced in high school turned out to be a pretty good major leaguer.

Right up there with hurting yourself playing tag in the yard or while sleeping on a pillow, cutting yourself on your own skate has to be a pretty crappy way to get injured. When you’re skating around with razor-sharp skates and you’re getting pushed around, ish happens, as it did to Teemu Selanne. Check out how Selanne hurt himself to the point where he’s out 4-6 weeks:

Those bad boys must be sharp as all hell, considering Selanne’s comments, “I knew right away that I got cut. It was scary how much blood was coming out. It was all over. You couldn’t even stop it.” 4-6 weeks seems pretty extensive but I’m not going to doubt them. At least he didn’t cut a tendon because the Ducks are in a tight race in the Western Conference.

Keeping up the tradition of the weirdest injuries in sports, Angels pitcher Jered Weaver will miss his next scheduled start because of cuts on his fingers. Did he cut his hand on a fence, or some netting, or maybe on a small knife? Nope, nope, and nope. Jered Weaver hurt himself getting up from a dugout bench. Seriously.

Weaver sustained cuts on the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his pitching hand while pushing himself up off the Comerica Park dugout bench during Tuesday night’s game against the Tigers. The cuts were not deep enough to require stitches.

Yeah, but they were deep enough to keep Weav from making his scheduled start Friday night against the White Sox. Instead, he’ll make the start on Monday against the Yankees, and the Sox will have the pleasure of teeing off on Dustin Moseley. Way to go, Jered. At least it’s not as bad as hurting yourself on a pillow.

LBS reader and commenter Jeff emails in with the story of Dolphins quarterback Josh McCown (he’s with the Dolphins now???) who is doing his best to play his way out of the starting quarterback competition. With Chad Henne and Cleo Lemon as the other candidates, McCown actually has a legit shot. Or had, shall we say, since he just injured his hand. From the Palm Beach Post:

McCown said he suffered the injury while cutting wood with his brother, a back-up quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The McCown brothers had cleared trees in a lot near a lake back home Texas and decided to cut some of it up into firewood.

McCown was holding the wood when his brother grazed his finger with a chainsaw.

“It was kid of some miscommunication about where we were cutting,” McCown said.

Yeah, a miscommunication, you don’t say. This ranks right up there with some of our other classic weird injuries on the site. I’ll leave the final word to Jeff who sums things up perfectly: “What schmuck of a QB who makes millions with his hands would be out cutting wood. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to use the money for. Have someone else cut it for him.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.

I’m always a sucker for weird baseball injuries, so after seeing this up at SportsbyBrooks, there was no question I had to post it. Brandon Inge was placed on the DL with a strained oblique. How did it happen you ask? The Detroit Free Press answers the question:

Inge said he aggravated the injury moving a pillow for his three-year-old Monday night. He said if not for that mishap, he probably would have tried to continue to play with the injury, which he said has bothered him since he suffered it on June 1 in Seattle.

Told of Inge’s account of the pillow, Tigers manager Jim Leyland said, “That’s a first.”

Well, after hearing that Raul Ibanez hurt himself sleeping, Aaron Rowand by playing tag, and Brandon Marshall by slipping on a McDonald’s bag, I can’t say I’m that surprised by this one. Amazing. Not that I did any sports betting on it, but my money at the sportsbook would have been on the Tigers to win the World Series before the year started. Now I know why they’re struggling — everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong. And they’re only five games out of first, too!