C.C. you later?

The shot heard round the world -- or at least the Greater Cleveland area -- was the bone cracking in C.C. Sabathia's wrist this afternon.

Maybe.

It seems that in his final preseason tuneup, on just the second pitch of the game, Cleveland Indians ace pitcher Sabathia took a line drive off his pitching wrist.

CRACK!

Presumably Sabathia's wrist is currently ballooning while trainers look at it. But because this is Cleveland we have already assumed the diagnosis will be something along these lines:

1.) Sabathia has been killed by the line drive, even though it struck him on the wrist.
2.) Sabathia's arm will need to be amputated by the morning.
3.) Gangrene will set in and Sabathia will spend the rest of the season trying to save his arm.
4.) Sabathia's wrist is broken and it will be three months before he sees the field again.
5.) Sabathia's wrist is somehow made even stronger by the line drive, and he signs with the Yankees.

There is no other possible diagnosis, not in a town where LeCharles Bentley's career can end on a noncontact injury on the first day of training-camp drills, not in a town where Cliff Lee can pull some stomach muscles and miss the first month of the season, not in a town where Gary Baxter can become crippled simply by jumping up in the air for a football.

No, when news like this leaks out, we simply head for the bedroom in order to pull the covers back over our head. In Cleveland no one is even allowed to be optimistic. Lucy always pulls the football out of the way at the last second, and we're foolish enough every time to think that we can kick it.

And then we land flat on our backs every time.