Dougie's Rehab

[Valadius]

From the AP:

Mets 1B Doug Mientkiewicz was scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with Class-A St. Lucie but was scratched because of the flu.

The FLU??? Shouldn't professional athletes, who need their bodies in peak physical condition, make sure they got a flu shot?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Happens all the time.

More interestingly, Mientkiewicz had vowed not to go back to St. Lucie for rehab, saying something to the effect of ,"If I go back there, I'm done. See you next spring."

[Guest GYC]

Honest to God, he needs some Prozac more than anything. He's paranoid. Last time he was on rehab assignment he was afraid he was staying there because of his performance this year. I feel bad for him because he's such an awesome guy.

[Willets Point]

I thought that in baseball parlance, flu = hangover.

[Frayed Knot]

"Flu-like symptoms" is what's used by athletes to cover all extraneous illnesses from hangovers to various social diseases.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Valadius - "Shouldn't professional athletes, who need their bodies in peak physical condition, make sure they got a flu shot?"

Getting an annual flu shot greatly reduces the likelihood of getting the flu, it certainly does not guarantee that the recipient will not contract the flu. There are numerous varieties of the influenza virus. When researchers develop a flu vaccine for each season, they gear it to protect against the strain of the virus they expect to be most likely to cause an outbreak that season. The effectiveness of the vaccine against all others strains of the influenza virus is quite variable.

Of course, as others have already stated, he was possibly trying to shake of the effects of a night spent drowning his sorrows at a local watering hole.