Jason Kendall was hitting with his son, Kuyper, on Sunday afternoon when he learned of Oneil Cruz's left ankle injury, suffered in the sixth inning of a game against the Chicago White Sox at PNC Park.
The former Pirates catcher had watched Cruz during his time as a volunteer roving instructor in the minor leagues last year. Kendall also knows plenty about horrific ankle injuries, as anyone who was watching Brewers-Pirates on July 4, 1999 can attest.
With the Pirates being no-hit by Milwaukee's Steve Woodward, Kendall dropped a bunt down the third-base line. While trying to beat third baseman Jeff Cirillo's throw to Mark Loretta, Kendall's right foot landed on the foul side of the bag. His ankle snapped, and it felt "like a piece of paper ripping."
So as Kuyper scrolled through social media and showed his dad the video of Cruz sliding into White Sox catcher Seby Zavala, Jason Kendall knew what he had to do. The same as he's done for Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Titans tight end MyCole Pruitt — plus a few basketball players who've suffered similarly ugly ankle injuries — Kendall knew he wanted to get in touch with Cruz.
Kendall texted Pirates general manager Ben Cherington, asked him to pass along some well wishes to Cruz and also offered to speak with the current Pirates player for a few minutes whenever he's feeling up to it.
"I know that's something that helped me out a lot," Kendall said, recounting out-of-the-blue phone calls he received from major leaguers such as Moises Alou and Robin Ventura during his rehab process. Alou went down in a heap in September 1993, when one of his cleats got caught on the turf in St. Louis.
What happened to Ventura was a little closer to Cruz, where he severely dislocated his ankle while sliding into home during a spring training game in March 1997. Neither was pretty.
While the Pirates medical staff will obviously walk Cruz through rehab steps and a return-to-play progression, those people don't have the view of being a professional athlete and having something so high-profile taken away from you.
One piece of advice Kendall said he heard from both Alou and Ventura involved when Cruz will start moving around again. Not necessarily returning to games, but taking ground balls, hitting and throwing.
Alou and Ventura warned Kendall that his ankle would probably feel awful for 10 days. He might doubt whether it was getting better and question whether he's doing something wrong.
"Sure enough, that's exactly what happened," Kendall said. "It felt terrible. But once that ended, it was fine. It was almost kind of a gut check."
In fact, Kendall's daughter, Karoline, also suffered a gruesome ankle injury while wrestling and wound up having surgery for a broken fibula. They're not the same injury, obviously, but surely Jason's perspective in that moment helped him stay remain calm and literally carry his daughter into the emergency room.
Another Pirates player suffering an ugly ankle injury had the memories flooding back to Kendall, too. He remembered how lucky he felt that Allegheny Health Network's Dr. Mark Langhans, a knee and ankle specialist, was working that day and performed the surgery.
And also how he received a shot of morphine, through his uniform, not long after exiting the game at Three Rivers Stadium. Kendall similarly never forget Dr. Langhans telling him, "Hang on, this is gonna hurt," before popping his ankle back into place. Or the ambulance ride to the hospital that night.
"I think we hit every pothole in Pittsburgh," Kendall said. "At least it felt like it."
As for the play itself, Kendall described it as "freaky" and said he thought Cruz mostly did what he should have done. He drifted toward the ball to try and block the throwing lane or get hit by the throw from third.
He also didn't have any issue with Zavala's conduct, thinking emotions probably got the best of him and he'd feel different about his emotional outburst now. Complicating things, Kendall believes what's known as the Buster Posey Rule has actually made things worse for runners and catchers.
In 2011, Posey suffered a season-ending injury due to a collision at the plate. So in February 2014, Major League Baseball essentially came up with a set of rules to outline how plays at the plate should go. Watching on his son's phone, Kendall thought Cruz might've been prepared to level Zavala, then changed his mind at the last minute when he realized that would be illegal.
"It looked like he was going to run the catcher over, then at the last second, he thought, 'Oh, [shoot], that's not allowed anymore. I have to slide,'" Kendall said. "You're looking at a 6-foot-7 body. It doesn't work that way that quick."
If you've never seen Kendall's injury, Google it. It's worse than what happened to Cruz. They put a towel over it, trying to prevent anyone — including Kendall — from seeing it.
Nothing was broken in Kendall's ankle, though he completely dislocated it, which was explained at the time as the yanking of the ankle from its socket having caused the fibula to tear through his skin.
"I have never seen any injury quite like it," said one Pirates team physician, Dr. Jack Failla, who assisted in Kendall's surgery.
Kendall knows that he's part of a club, the change-the-channel crew. What happened to Cruz isn't quite at that level, but it was certainly enough to motivate Kendall to offer a few words of encouragement.
"He's gonna be fine," Kendall said. "He's only 24. I did mine when I was 25. He's so young. The medical staff can talk to you about what to do, but you're gonna have ups and downs. His left ankle is gonna be stronger than his right one when he's done.
"People forget that these guys are young men. They're people just like anyone else with a really special talent. It hit home for me because you root for people like him."
