Editor’s note: This story first appeared in The Denver Post on May 13, 2002, after then-Broncos quarterback Brian Griese injured himself on Terrell Davis’ driveway.

Carl McAdams was feeling pretty good for a guy who has had seven surgeries on his left ankle. Then the truth came out, and the truth has been known to hurt.

“I’m afraid you’re going to print this,” McAdams said last week from Antlers, Okla., where the former New York Jets player operates an insurance agency.

Print what?

“The real story of how I got hurt,” McAdams said. Now it can be told, with McAdams’ permission. That ankle the former Oklahoma star broke the summer of 1966? The injury the Jets thought was an accident all these years?

Yes, it involved a misstep off a curb. But the fight McAdams had with a member of the Chicago Bears played a bigger role.

“A little street brawl outside a bar,” said McAdams, who grudgingly came clean. “I did fall off the curb, but I had help. I can still feel the embarrassment.”

Brian Griese has known the feeling for a week. He recently knocked himself unconscious by falling on a teammate’s driveway — qualifying the quarterback of the Denver Broncos for membership in the always expanding club of athletes who have had bizarre injuries.

“Hey, it happens,” said alpine skier Tommy Moe, the 1994 Olympic downhill gold medalist and super-G silver medalist who missed the ’97 world championships because he severed a thumb ligament on broken glass while climbing over a bar inside an Austrian pub.

“Nobody’s immune to stupid injuries, athletes included. We’re human, too.”

Don’t remind McAdams, 58. A consensus All-America linebacker for the Sooners in 1965, he was selected by the Jets in the third round of the AFL draft and by the St. Louis Cardinals in the first round of the NFL draft. The Jets offered more money, so he signed with them.

He was in Chicago preparing with other college all-stars to lose 38-0 to the NFL champion Green Bay Packers when his pro career stalled before it started.

“I can’t even remember what the fight was about. It was so long ago,” said McAdams, who retired after the 1969 season. “But I do remember having words with a Bear, and the two of us taking it outside. I never played my rookie season, and I never was the same player.

“I’m still disgusted with myself. The story the Jets put out, that I was accidentally injured stepping off a curb, was done off what I told them. They were upset enough with me without hearing the real story.”

Major-league pratfalls

Some injuries are so ridiculous, they can’t be real. But they are. And if bizarre injuries were an auto race, baseball would drive the pace car.

“Baseball dominates the list,” said Northglenn’s Mark Knudson, who pitched for three major-league clubs, including a brief stint with the Colorado Rockies in 1993. “You’d swear the freak injuries in baseball are made up, they’re so hilarious.”

Among the contributors are Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn and George Brett, members of the 3,000-hit club.

Boggs once injured his back while putting on cowboy boots.

Gwynn slammed the door of his Porsche on his right hand, fracturing his middle finger. His destination? The bank.

Brett reportedly was running from the kitchen to the TV to see the replay of a home run hit by Bill Buckner when he broke his toe.

This spring at training camp, Dave Hollins of the Philadelphia Phillies was bitten by a poisonous spider while sleeping. He’s still recovering — on the disabled list.

“Eighty guys in camp, and they bite the diabetic,” Hollins told reporters, shaking his head.

Nolan Ryan was bitten once, too — by a coyote. Phil Niekro, another 300-game winner, hurt his pitching hand by shaking hands too vigorously.

Larry Walker, the Rockies’ all-star right fielder, separated his right shoulder after the 1996 season while fishing in Canada.

Rockies pitcher Mike Hampton missed a start last season because of a stiff neck, which he blamed on the pillows on his hotel bed. Glenallen Hill jumped out of bed and fell through a glass table, fueled by a nightmare about spiders devouring him.

David Cone missed a start because his mother-in-law’s dog bit him.

Frostbite once sidelined Rickey Henderson — in August. Kevin Mitchell managed to strain a muscle while vomiting. Hall of Famer Bob Feller scalded himself when he lost control of a hose pouring equator-hot water into a whirlpool.

John Smoltz burned himself while ironing a shirt he was wearing.

Cal Ripken’s record consecutive games-played streak stood at 2,238 when the Baltimore Orioles star posed for a team photo of the American League all-stars in 1996. He had a broken nose when the Orioles resumed play because Chicago White Sox closer Roberto Hernandez inadvertently struck him in the face while stepping awkwardly off the platform.

“It tilted like a table,” said Ripken, whose record was extended to 2,632 games. “That threw everybody off balance, and I got right in the way of a vicious left back-fist. The first thing in my mind was, ‘Keep this a secret.’ The last thing you want is to go down as the only player to suffer an injury during a team picture.”

Vince Coleman stole 110 bases for the Cardinals in 1985, his rookie season. But he couldn’t outrun the electronically operated tarp at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. While warming up before Game 4 of the National League Championship Series that year, he was trapped by the rolling cylinder and lost for the rest of the postseason, including the World Series. The cylinder rolled up his left leg, badly injuring his knee, and Coleman had to be carried off the field on a stretcher.

Later, while playing for the New York Mets, Coleman swung a golf club in the clubhouse and connected with Dwight Gooden’s pitching arm. That injury was a bogey, not bogus.

While pitching in Seattle for the Milwaukee Brewers, Knudson worked out of the bullpen with a leg injury that concerned him more than the Mariners’ lineup.

“I slipped on wet pavement trying to catch an afternoon bus going to the airport to pick up my wife, who was coming in for a visit. It was quite a tumble,” Knudson said, chuckling. “By the time I got to the airport, I was really hurting. I could barely walk, let alone pitch.”

Charlie Metro, a former Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals manager, returned from the ballpark one day with a broken nose and two black eyes. And he didn’t even play.

“Class C Pioneer League, 1948,” said Metro, 84, who lives in Arvada. “I was managing the New York Yankees’ farm club in Twin Falls, Idaho, and I got cold-cocked by a left-handed pitcher on the Salt Lake City club. Never saw it coming. That’s what I got for trying to break up a fight on the field.”

Out of the hoop

Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce never saw it coming, either. The knife, that is. He was stabbed in the face, neck and back before the 2000-01 season while playing billiards at a nightclub in Boston’s theater district.

At least Pierce’s excuse for being sidelined was legitimate.

Lionel Simmons was a rookie starring for the Sacramento Kings in February 1991 when he developed tendinitis in his right wrist and forearm. The injury was caused by Simmons playing his Nintendo GameBoy, and he missed two games.

“It’s not unusual for Lionel to be focused on something,” Jerry Reynolds, the Kings’ general manager at the time, told reporters. “But to hurt himself like that?”

You mean, like former NBA guard Muggsy Bogues, who once missed the second half of a game because he accidentally inhaled ointment during halftime treatment of a sore muscle and became dizzy?

“One of those fluke things you don’t even dream about,” Bogues said.

You never know

NHL goaltender Glenn Healy can relate. While playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs two years ago, he cut a finger while trying to fix vintage bagpipes. The wound required several stitches.

The NFL uses a coin toss to start games, a seemingly safe ceremony that ended the Hall of Fame career of Washington Redskins tackle Turk Edwards. He was taking part in the coin toss before a September 1940 game against the New York Giants when he wrenched a knee and never played again.

Godwin Turk, a linebacker for the Broncos from 1976-78, dislocated a shoulder while spiking the ball.

Then there’s Arizona Cardinals kicker Bill Gramatica and former Broncos quarterback Gus Frerotte, now with the Cincinnati Bengals. Gramatica punctuated a 42-yard field goal against the Giants last year with a season-ending knee injury. He paid for an unlucky landing after his jump for joy.

Frerotte was with the Redskins in 1997 when he celebrated a touchdown he scored at FedEx Field by head-butting the padded, concrete wall near the end zone. Knocked woozy, he ended up in the hospital because of a jammed neck.

Moe happily salutes them all.

“Good to know I have some company,” Moe said from Jackson, Wyo., where he is a ski ambassador for a resort. “I didn’t hear about Griese, but it sounds like he’s joined the club. Tell him ‘welcome’ for me.”

And for many others.