Yes, your Trevor Bauer-hockey player comparisons are stupid – CBSSports.com

Not long after Indians right-hander Trevor Bauer‘s forced departure from Game 3 of ALCS in Toronto — a departure that was the result of gash on his right pinky, itself the result of a drone’s act of betrayal — it started. By “it,” I mean inane comparisons of Bauer to any number of far hardier hockey players. For instance …

And …

And …

And so on.

The implication — tacit in some instances, foolish in all — is that Bauer, because he left a playoff start on account of a pinky boo-boo, is necessarily made of lesser stuff than those who play hockey. I have no doubt that hockey players, much like pretty much every high-level athlete, generally have high pain thresholds. This, however, is not evidence that Bauer is lacking the same.

Bauer was ordered out of the game Monday night because he was bleeding on the baseball, and the rules of baseball permit no foreign substance on the implement in question. While we’re conditioned to think of foreign substances in the pitching realm as things like pine tar and Vaseline and even spit, blood is indeed a foreign substance. Know what else is a foreign substance? Bandages and skin glue, which is why Bauer wasn’t able to stanch the bleeding with something like that. It was Blue Jays manager John Gibbons who asked umpires to consider whether Bauer should be allowed to continue pitching. Afterward, Gibbons even called his counterpart Terry Francona to ensure he wasn’t upset at having to remove his pitcher from game in which said pitcher wanted no part in leaving.

As for his coping with the pain, please note that Bauer, according to Yahoo’s Jeff Passan, asked trainers before Game 3 to melt the wound closed with a soldering iron. Presumably, the meek of will and heart do not ask to have their fingers liquefied.

It’s entirely possible that Bauer isn’t able to withstand physical discomfort to the extent that the warrior-kings of hockey do, but no one making these comparisons have any idea of that. Perhaps they should ask the Indians’ training staff solder their asses shut so as to avoid talking out of them.