Roy Oswalt Electro-Shock Therapy

General Pitching Topics
#1

I read this story about Roy Oswalt on wikipedia. It’s such a ridiculous story that it’s oddly reminiscent of bad kids’ baseball movies like “Rookie of Year”…

“In 1999, when Oswalt was with the Class A Michigan Battle Cats in the Midwest League, he suffered an apparently serious shoulder injury. After a month of pain in his upper shoulder, Oswalt was convinced that his shoulder was torn. Shortly thereafter, he was checking the sparkplug wires on his truck. He touched one of the sparkplug wires, causing the truck’s engine to start. The truck’s electric current flowed through Oswalt’s body, and consequently the muscles in his hand tightened on the sparkplug wire. Unable to let go of it, Oswalt grasped the wire for almost one minute. Oswalt then claimed his foot slipped off the truck’s bumper and he was finally “thrown off.” After the electric shock, Oswalt told his wife that his shoulder’s condition improved and that he no longer felt any pain. Apparently, the electric charge loosened accumulated scar tissue in the shoulder. Oswalt claims he has not felt any pain in his shoulder since the incident. He finished 1999 with 143 strikeouts and a club-high 13 wins.”

#2

Hey man don’t hate on rookie of the year.
I probably killed the VHS tape watching that movie so many times when I was younger.

Interesting story, who knows if it’s actually true.

I had a bad experience extremely similar. Tightening a lighbulp (turns out it was tight and the connection was bad) so I left it on while I was doing it. Shattered the bulped and latched onto the fillament inside. Couldn’t let go for several seconds.

Needless to say it hasn’t done anything quite as magical for my shoulder haha. Never had any problems, and still don’t though.

Moral of the story, turn off your lights to tighten a bulb, otherwise it’s kinda like running with scissors.

#3

All i can do is laugh. Thanks for the interesting story. Id like to see Roy’s face when he reads that! That is… unless it is true? haha.

#4

I’ve heard the same story from a guy who played with Roy.

#5

Oh its a true story, he tells lots of people about it. I heard from Jason Lane, the Astros outfielder who I have met before (Friend of my used to be batting coach).

Just a lucky break I guess…

#6

If you have shoulder problems i dont advise anyone to go and try this lol

#7

Don’t laugh. Things like that have happened. Take, for example, Ed Lopat (my incredible pitching coach of many moons ago). He pitched and won two games in the 1951 World Series, but after the second one he suddenly couldn’t lift his left arm—the weather during that Series may have had something to do with it. He started the 1952 season on the shelf—what they call the DL nowadays—and was out of action for a few months. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him! Then he remembered an orthopedic surgeon whom he’d known in his White Sox days, and he flew out to Chicago to see him. The doctor examined him and told him that what he had was tendinitis in his left shoulder.
The prescription was radical in those days, and I don’t think they do it any more, but the orthopedic guy prescribed a series of ten X-ray treatments. It worked, the way it had worked for Johnny Sain and a few other guys who convinced Lopat to try it. And when he returned to New York and came off the disabled list he was pitching better than ever—in fact, from that time until he was traded in mid-1955 he ran up a record of 33-8, including what he continued to do to the Indians.
So the Oswalt story seems to have been right on target. Now, I wouldn’t recommend the sort of thing he did, but there are some offbeat strategies that will work. And by the way, Bower, I like that picture of Mariano Rivera. 8)