Unfortunately for professional athletes, their contracts say they have to tell the truth about why they're not working today. And hence we get honest accounts of wimpdom such as:

For most guys, the closest you get to a sports injury is breaking your ankle while drunkenly jumping around in a Space Walk on your 27th birthday. The great thing about being "most guys" is that you get to revise those injuries to "coming down awkwardly after dunking on a big black guy" without getting called on your bullshit.

Ken Griffey Jr. pinches a testicle with his own cup.

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Getting smacked in the balls during a game is probably the manliest injury you can sustain on the sports field short of taking a puck to the face or being mauled by a lion in the Roman Coliseum. Sure, it makes you jump around like a five-year-old girl who has to pee, but it's the only injury that offers definitive proof of your manhood. But when you administer the punishment yourself, you destroy the magic, wonder and sheer hypnotic rhythm of the nut shot, and go from "wounded soldier every man feels for" to "episode of America's Funniest Home Videos."

Griffey is a Hall of Famer when it comes to pussified injuries. He fell into a big slump starting in the 2000 season thanks to a list of bizarre injuries that would make the mother of a redneck backyard wrestler feel grateful. By 2006, he had been held out of play by eight unrelated injuries, the second most embarrassing being a broken throwing hand sustained while wrestling with his son on his yacht in the Bahamas. For his son, who presumably started going by Bone Crusher and wearing a cape to school, this had to have been awesome. For Griffey Jr., who has a reputation of being overpaid and injury prone, the yacht/kid combo probably wasn't so good.

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But the pinched testicle injury managed to top it. Having your balls crushed, like we said is one thing, but there's just something inherently unmanly about the word "pinch." It's something sisters do to each other, or overly dramatic people do to themselves when something good happens. It's not something you should be doing to your own sack. And by doing it with the device that is supposed to protect your manhood, you're just adding a layer of Mr. Bean-like slapstick futility that makes people want to buy you an ice cream cone and chuck your chin more than watch you play baseball.

Could it have been worse?

He could have ripped his testicle clean out of the socket while getting it waxed.

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Wimp-o-Meter

5--Wedgie Magnet