Tag Archives: I C WUT U DID THAR!

Quick Press — Professional Sports and “Disabled Lists”

Many professional athletic teams in the U.S. and Canada (for Hockey and Baseball, but I do not know of other sports, or of other countries’ sports’ teams) have what are known as “Disabled Lists“. Major League Baseball calls it this specifically, where a player who is temporarily injured and can not play for whatever reason is placed on this list.

The National Hockey League and the National Football League have what are called “Injured Reserved Lists“, but these are basically the same thing.

These lists are made public, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is for fantasy leagues and gamblers so that they are always on top of who is in and who is out of the game.

How does this poke you, gentle readers? Does this feel like an appropriation of language by people who make their living off of able bodies who stretch them to extremes?

Does this fall under the “temporarily abled” thought train that some of us use when talking about how our bodies will eventually break down, knowing that professional athletes will often succumb to serious injury at younger ages than expected by society due to the constant beating they take?

I leave it to you, now to discuss.