The New York Yankees are currently in first place in the AL East with the second-best record in all of baseball, so as soon as they have that best record in baseball status locked up – and maybe toss in a few highway robbery trades as well – all will be well in the universe, according to Yankees fans. One of the luxuries of being “business as usual” for baseball’s highest payroll is that Yankees players and fans can once again laugh, not only at the fans of teams beneath them in the standings, but also at their own miseries of previous years.

For example, on Friday the Yankees visited the Kansas City Royals for a quick three-game sweep to extend their winning streak to five games, but because Kauffman Stadium is where Yankees closer and first ballot Hall-of-Famer Mariano Rivera ended his season a wee bit early last season while shagging fly balls in warm-ups, his teammates decided to poke fun at the injury with the “No Mo Zone”.

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OH GOD I JUST READ MY OWN HEADLINE

Ray Elbe — you may remember him from season 9 of ‘The Ultimate Fighter — suffered an injury that no man should have to suffer. If the headline didn’t make you gag and step away from the computer, here’s the nicest way I can put it … he was having sex with his girlfriend, slipped out of her as she was going up, then suffered the consequences as she was coming down. And by “consequences” I mean SHE BROKE HIS PENIS IN HALF.

“I ended up fracturing my penis bone … I tore the urinary tract, tore some membrane — as it happened you can imagine the shock and the horror that was going on,” Elbe said in the video. “I jumped up from the intimate moment, blood shooting out of my groin. I immediately tried to run to the shower, felt myself losing consciousness, tried to walk back to the bed at which point I collapsed, knocking myself out. I gave myself 10 stitches and fractured a couple teeth.”

Elbe wrote about the situation (pretty accurately described as “as close to death as you can come without dying”) on his blog, MagicalRay.com, and if there’s ever been a time to NOT end a sentence with LOL, it’s this one:

This is probably the worst nightmare you can think of. The biggest problem people suffering from this medical emergency encounter…is not immediately seeking medical attention … I hope my story helps someone with a similar injury in some way…as this experience is truly something you would never wish on anyone..lol

Nobody is laughing.

[h/t (or should that be a d/t?) to Larry Brown Sports]

And now, a post on a semi-reputable sports comedy blog about how I once at lobster at a seafood restaurant shaped like a barn and threw up everywhere.

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was rushed to the hospital on Monday. That’s a scary sentence, especially for a guy currently on the physically unable to perform list already, trying hard to recover from surgery. He was experiencing shortness of breath and a swelling of the face (!) at the Vikings’ dormitory at Minnesota State University and had to be golf-carted to a medical facility. The terrifying cause? He’d eaten some bad seafood during lunch.

WE ARE THE SAME, YOU AND I.

“He’s doing fine,” Frazier said Monday, July 30. “He’ll pick back up with his rehab (Tuesday). He’s been cleared. Everything’s back to normal now. Bit of a scare but he’s fine now.”

The team was unaware of any specific food allergies Peterson had, Frazier said.

“He had mentioned there was a time early in his life where he had an allergic reaction to something, maybe not quite as severe as this,” the coach said. (via TwinCities.com)

One of the reasons I stopped eating meat in its entirety is because my body went YEAH RIGHT after I ate it and exploded from the inside. My last two experiences with shellfish were (1) the aforementioned barn thing when I was seven, which was the most embarrassing moment of my life until (2) a New Years Eve dinner 15 years later when I decided maybe I was just sick that day and not allergic to seafood at all. That ended with me lying on the ground waiting for someone to take me to the hospital while my head transmogrified into Rocky Dennis from The Mask. Hopefully, Adrian’s experience wasn’t as damningly miserable as those. We wish you a speedy recovery, friend!

In other injury news, wide receiver Percy Harvin jammed a finger trying to open a crab leg and will miss the entire season.

In the best NFL/children’s game story mash-up since Mario Williams accidentally Woke Daddy, veteran fullback Lawrence Vickers had to be helped off the pratice field during the Dallas Cowboys’ final week of organized team activities to be medically treated for Ants In The Pants. No, the actual ones.

The story, via Shutdown Corner:

On Wednesday, during the Cowboys’ final week of organized team activities, Vickers was seen leaving the field with head athletic trainer Jim Mauer, holding his right hand near his waist. Vickers wasn’t injured — he had been attacked by the nasty bugs while on the practice field.

“Fire ants got in my pants,” Vickers said. “I was freaking out. Oh, ants!”

At least he didn’t KerPlunk himself. Maybe he should tell that story the next time he has to Break The Ice.

The worst part is that Vickers is allergic to ant bites and already has to carry around an EpiPen in case the team isn’t near a hospital, something bites him and his neck swells up so badly he can barely breathe. That’s the worst part for most people, I mean. The worst part for Vickers is that women were around and he didn’t want ants to bite his balls in front of them.

“I was trying not to squeeze myself in front of women out there … I wanted to pull my pants down and run inside, but I couldn’t do that. When those ants get close to those testicles, there ain’t no laughing about that.”

Look on the bright side: at least you didn’t have to have an Operation.

In extremely important sports news to me, Cleveland.com is reporting that Cavaliers mascot “Moondog” was taken to the hospital after a good natured game of pre-game man-to-dog roughhousing got out of control and nearly cost him an eye. The injury came courtesy of Indiana Pacers forward David West, so of course when I read “Cavs mascot sent to hospital by West” my first thought was that Delonte West had rolled back into the 216 on his tri-ped superbike, tore open whatever flower box he’s using to conceal his machine guns and shot the poor dog to death.

Anyway:

The club did not update his status for Sunday’s game against Orlando. It’s unclear whether the Cavs, already without Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao among others, will need to promote a mascot from the NBA Development League.

“He jumped at me so I thought we were playing around and then the next thing I know he went down,” West told reporters after the game. “It was definitely an accident.”

Moondog was spotted running through the hall, his dog head removed, clutching a towel to his eye. The mascot occasionally has fun sparring with opposing players before the game or during a timeout. Moondog and West exchanged some playful punches and apparently one caught him hard enough to do damage.

Also of note is the adorable follow-up, with West feeling increasingly guilty as he’s asked about it and asking people to “make sure he knows [he's] sorry”. I wouldn’t know how to feel if I encountered an anthropomorphic basketball playing dogman and accidentally blinded him. Pretty sure Dave just violated the Prime Directive.

In a related story, Jeff Pendergraph took a wrong turn in his van and manslaughtered Lake County Captains mascot Skipper.

“The only time I got hurt was when I punched Gina Carano in the head by accident.”

I want that written on my tombstone.

That’s what Ewan McGregor told an extremely excited to be there correspondent of the E! Network at the Golden Globes. Between this and trying to pop Jim Norton’s eyeballs out of his head it looks Gina’s doing more damage as a leading lady than she ever did cagefighting and whomping people in the neck with pugil sticks on ‘American Gladiators’.

The story, which either confirms that Gina Carano’s skull is too foxy for human hands or Obi-Wan Kenobi can’t throw a punch:

“I had a series of three punches, but the third one…for one reason or another I connected really hard on the side of her head,” McGregor said. “She was the one who got straight up and said, ‘Are you OK?’ She was asking me if I was OK! But she was right because I almost broke my friggin’ hand!”

Carano took the hit like a champ. McGregor laughed, “She was absolutely fine.”

I guess she’s really taking that killing people in her underwear thing seriously. She should’ve connected really hard on the side of his head for making Down With Love.