According to Joba...

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Joba Chamberlain spoke to the media yesterday before last night's game, and made some interesting comments regarding his ankle injury.

What we know now is how the injury happened. Joba and his son Karter were jumping back-and-forth between what we can assume were several trampolines. On Joba's final jump, as he tried to "take off," he could "feel" that something happened. He doesn't explain whether it was a pull or a snap, only that he grabbed his leg and said, "Ah, man!"

Realizing something was wrong with his ankle, Joba said that he just sat down (on the trampoline), put his leg up, and called the paramedics. Once he arrived at the hospital, he continued to make more calls; one need not assume that one of those calls was to Brian Cashman.

Joba went on to tell the media that one of the things that bothered him was the report that he had lost a large amount of blood, and that his injury was "life threatening." "It's one of those things where I know there wasn't a lot [the media] had out there when it happened, but it's one of those things that bothered me too, you know, people are calling me asking if it was life threatening and I was going to lose my foot. There was no bone even out of my ankle. It was just something that bothered me, to have my family go through that."

Clearly Joba believes that media speculation is where the story of his injury being life threatening began. Interesting. Even more interesting was his claim that there was no bone out of his ankle. This would mean that there was no "open dislocation," but according to Cashman, that's exactly what it was. He says he confirmed with Joba's doctors that the skin on his ankle was indeed "broken," making this an "open dislocation" and that Joba did lose blood. However, the injury was never life threatening. A member of the press, however, did clarify that the person--who works at the recreation center--that made the 911 call told the operator that Joba lost a lot of blood. Joba said that he tried to calm the person down, noting that he recognized how scared this person was at the sight of his blood.

Joba also insisted that the injury wasn't very painful, and that he will continue to do what he can as far as his rehab from the Tommy John surgery. He pointed out that he can still work on his upper body, and will put a plan in place to make that happen.

Another member of the media asked Joba what he learned from this experience. His immediate response was, "Never question being a father." He went on to say that he feels like he let the team down with this injury, but upon reflection, he realizes that his role as a dad to Karter is his most important.

"This game is very important to me; it allows me to do a lot of things. But my son is my pride and joy, and I think that was the biggest thing, is to don't be so hard on yourself and realize what you were doing. You were trying to be a great dad."



So what's left now is to wait and see how quickly Joba recovers from the injury and whether he will actually pitch sometime this year. Cashman refused to answer questions about the team's option to void Joba's contract, stating that what happened to Joba was an aaccident; the implication being that this wasn't something Joba did on purpose. To drive his point home, Cashman recalled former Yankee pitcher Kevin Brown punching a wall as no accident.

Follow Rasheeda Cooper on twitter: @ra_cooper