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We Got Our Weird Spring Training Injury Out of the Way Early This Year

Kansas City Royals reliever Brian Flynn will miss eight weeks because he fell through the roof of his barn.

For most teams, pitchers and catchers officially reported to spring training on Monday. It's more of a symbolic thing than anything else; baseball is officially back, even if it is just (some) guys checking into town and maybe soft-tossing. Most teams won't even have a full workout until the end of the week, and actual games won't start until a week after that. But the ball is rolling, and it's rolling pretty quickly because we already have a clubhouse leader in a spring training tradition of sorts: the bizarre spring training injury. This one comes via the Kansas City Royals, and it's a doozy: dude fell through his roof.

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Rustin Dodd, of the Kansas City Star, has the full details:

On the day before he departed for camp, reliever Brian Flynn crashed through the roof of his barn at his home in McAlester, Okla., breaking a rib and sustaining three non-displaced fractures in his vertebrae, Royals manager Ned Yost said on Tuesday.

Flynn will miss close to eight weeks, Yost said. A 26-year-old left-hander, Flynn was expected to compete for a spot in the Royals' bullpen this spring.

"He was working on his barn and fell through the roof," Yost said. "So he took a pretty good tumble, knocked himself out. So he's going to be about eight weeks behind everybody else."

Previous entries included Derek Holland tripping over his dog, Corey Hart losing a battle with a hot tub, and a high-five gone awry. Still, this one to Flynn—who threw 55.1 innings over 36 games with a 2.60 ERA last season—wins on both degree of difficulty and unlikeliness.

While the whole thing certainly sounds crazy and Flynn did suffer some significant injuries, Dodd also said he appeared to be in "good spirits" before Kansas City's first workout, which he did not participate in. Because, as you will recall, he fucked himself up falling through the roof of his barn.