Larry Brown Sports

Anyone who has ever played golf knows that tempers tend to flare on the course. Players have a tendency to be frustrated with their game, are often drinking alcohol, and for some reason feel the need to flex their muscles in front of other golfers. Arguments on the golf course are a common occurrence, but fortunately what happened to 48-year old Clay Carpenter is not. According to the Star-Telegram, Carpenter was reportedly stabbed with a broken club by another golfer after Carpenter’s threesome tried to play through the attacker’s foursome.

The stab punctured Carpenter’s femoral artery and could cost him his leg. He was released from Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital on Sunday and could need more surgeries.

“People get in arguments every day on every golf course in America,” Carpenter said. “But 99.9 percent of the time no one takes it this far.

“If (the blood flow in my leg) does not regenerate it will be no good to me. I’ll never be able to lift my feet up again. I’ve run full marathons, and I’ll never be a runner again. I’ve lost the ability to properly use my leg. I’ll have to use a brace on this right leg forever.”

Police in Tarrant County, Texas are investigating the incident. As if the story isn’t unusual enough, the 9-1-1 call is even more strange. A man who identified himself as a member of the foursome that was playing in front of Carpenter placed an 11-minute emergency call and sounded unsure about how the injury occurred.

“He fell on a golf club or something,” the caller reportedly said. “He’s passed out once already. We’ve got his artery clamped with our hand. We don’t know this guy. They were golfers behind us. He’s not in our group.”

Carpenter said the attacker tried to hit him in the head with a club before stabbing him, and he grabbed the club and snapped it. If the caller was playing ahead of the threesome that was trying to play through and was present when the brawl broke out, it would be tough to imagine he does not know what happened. Somebody should remind these people that golf is just a game.

H/T Devil Ball Golf

The headline says it all. LA Kings winger Dustin Penner was sent home from practice Saturday with a tight back. How did his back get hurt? When he stretched to eat pancakes in the morning.

“Apparently it’s one of those mysterious things, where you can throw it out (from) sneezing. I just leaned over to dip into some delicious pancakes that my wife made,” Penner explained to Kings Insider.

“It’s just like it [the pain] wraps around you and squeezes. … So it was disappointing. Hopefully it’s just an isolated incident, and not something that’s going to become chronic.”

Most sports fans were probably unfamiliar with Penner, and I’m guessing this isn’t the way he wanted to become known. If anything can comfort Dustin in this difficult time, it’s knowing that there are plenty more weird injuries where this came from, many much worse than this.

Quentin Richardson already wasn’t much of a factor for the Magic, but now he’s just embarrassing himself. The Orlando small forward missed Friday night’s home loss to the Bulls because of a problem with his ankle.

You ready for this?

Richardson was icing his ankle and that apparently caused irritation on his heel. Because of the irritated heel, he was inactive for the team’s game.

Q is only averaging 2.3 points and 13 minutes per game, so it’s not as if the Magic missed him. But this is easily the lamest reason for missing a game since Samardo Samuels’ lost passport.

H/T Hot Clicks, SB Nation

A blunder by former Michigan basketball player Manny Harris cost him a shot at a roster spot with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Harris was waived by the Cavs last week after being unable to practice because of an injury to his right foot. The guard suffered freezer burn on his foot after stepping into a Cryon-X cooling chamber. Cryotherapy chambers have become popular with athletes recently, but Harris reportedly made the mistake of walking in with a wet sock.

Harris tweeted two weeks ago “2nd degree burn on my foot, havent practiced with the team yet, got injured in a way that was totally out of my control!!”

Sounds like the injury may have been his fault, contrary to what he says. What sucks is that he was unable to be treated by the team’s doctors because of the lockout, delaying his possible recovery. Cleveland lost its season opener 104-96 Monday without him. That’s a pretty painful way to learn a tough lesson.

Things are not looking up for the UCLA men’s basketball team. Their last two losses — in fairness — came against ranked opponents, but a 1-4 start is not exactly what the Bruins were hoping for to kick off the 2011-2012 season. To make matters worse, they became the latest victim of the weird injury bug on Thursday when leading scorer Travis Wear hurt his foot.

According to the L.A. Times, the sophomore forward was snorkeling in Hawaii when he cut his foot and needed five stitches.  Apparently the Maui Invitational did not include a presentation about the dangers of coral and how deceptively sharp it can be.  Of course you’re going to snorkel when you score a free trip to Hawaii, but at least know some basic guidelines before you embark.

Wear missed practice on Saturday and is scheduled to be reevaluated on Monday.  Athletes really need to start paying more attention when they’re around sharp things.  With important games on the line, we can’t have guys slicing their hands open with scissors and injuring their hands trying to clean a blender.  Didn’t these guys learn anything about safety when they were growing up?

Andy Murray has done it again.  Those of you who are avid LBS readers know we love using our weird injuries tag.  While unfortunate, most of the injuries are completely hilarious so we feel the need to rip on the victims.  Today, however, is a particularly special day.  Today we offer congratulations to Murray, who has become our first repeat offender.

That’s right, the same tennis player who hurt his hand playing Playstation almost exactly a year ago has suffered another bizarre injury.  This time, Murray strained his ass.  He withdrew from the Swiss Indoors on Wednesday after somehow straining his right gluteal muscle while sleeping.

“I don’t know how I did it or what it came from,” a distressed looking Murray (as you can see from the above photo) explained according to On The Go Tennis. “I’ve never had anything like this before.”

Poor guy can’t get out of his own way.  Maybe he just needs to be particularly careful with everyday activities in the weeks surrounding Halloween, because that’s when his strange injuries seem to occur.  Here’s hoping Murray’s ass makes a quick recovery so he can return to action.

Is it just me or do household appliances seem to get more dangerous by the day?  Growing up, my parents always worried about the usual dangers my brother and I could face such as running with scissors, playing with matches, and using electronic devices.  Now that we have entered the 21st century, it appears we need to monitor adults when they use such products as well.  Well, maybe just baseball players.

As CBSSports.com’s Eye on Baseball blog shared with us, Blue Jays starter Brett Cecil was scratched from his Friday night start against the Yankees after he injured his hand.  Simply put, Cecil could avoid a similar injury in the future by taking more caution when handling a blender.  Cecil reportedly sliced his hand while cleaning the dangerous and complicated contraption.

Someone needs to explain to me how we have seen three starting pitchers miss time due to hand lacerations this season — one with a pair of scissors, one using a knife to separate hamburger patties, and another cleaning a blender.  Did these grown men spend too much time throwing baseballs when they were younger and not enough learning basic safety?  Thank goodness our man Danny Lee already looked into it so I don’t have to.

Many analysts predicted the Marlins Josh Johnson could be one of the breakout players of the 2011 MLB season.  The 27-year-old power pitcher was coming off a 2010 season in which he struck out 186 batters in 183.2 innings.  A lack of run support led to Johnson winning only 12 games despite a phenomenal 2.30 ERA.  Johnson was cruising along this season with a 1.64 ERA through 9 starts when a shoulder injury derailed him.  He has been on the DL since May.

As he looks to return to the Marlins before the end of the season, Johnson shed some light on what may have contributed to his shoulder inflammation.  Believe it or not, the 6-foot-7-inch right hander told the Miami Herald his doctor says “tall man’s syndrome” could very well have been a contributing factor.

“It’s a matter of posture and a bunch of stuff that just kind of led up to it,” Johnson said. “Years and years of being tall, you’re always slouching down and bending over. You’re shoulder’s not in a good place. You start leaning over when you’re throwing. It snowballs.”

While shoulder soreness from tall man’s syndrome has nothing to do with clumsiness like this injury or this injury did, it is still just as intriguing.  The world can be a tough place for tall people, so I wouldn’t doubt there are things in life that could put stress on the shoulder of someone who is that tall. Being that tall also helps Johnson throw a fastball 97 mph, so it has its benefits as well.