Wartezimmer » runs -- four earned -- in the second inning of an 8

This story appears in ESPN The Magazines November 14 Pain Issue. Subscribe today!BROKEN LEG, NO big deal: clean line through the tibia. A Chargers defensive back landed on me in the end zone. Didnt feel like much, just a little click in my ankle. I jogged to the sideline, and one of my Broncos teammates ran on for me. Theres always someone ready to run on.You OK? a coach asked. I think so, I said, and tried to walk it off, then sat on the bench. The game ended, and I limped across the field toward the locker room, my cleats scraping the concrete in the dilapidated bowels of San Diegos Qualcomm Stadium.Pain does not deter an NFL player. It lights the way.Every hit induces pain; the very essence of football is to submit your opponent through force. You learn very early that football is pain, that humans covered in metal and hard plastic colliding at top speed is going to hurt. But America rewards the boys who act as if it doesnt. So hit me again! Harder! Thats how you climb the football ladder: one lie at a time.The Broncos put me on injured reserve the day after I broke my leg, ending my 2004 season. Someone handed me a few bottles of pain meds and anti-inflammatories. Make sure you finish these, they said. They only work if you finish them. I was still a young player in the NFL and hadnt yet started to question the protocol, so I ate all of my pills like a good boy, and I disappeared into the dark world of rehab. This is how it starts. My team was on a playoff run. I was on Percocet.Next season, the team moved me to tight end and I had to gain weight: 25 pounds in three months. By June, I had my new body. I still knew how to run like a receiver, but my frame couldnt support the new torque. In training camp, I pulled my right hamstring, high up near my tailbone. No time to be hurt, though. I was trying to make the team at a new position.The pain was manageable, but it wasnt healing fast enough. I looked around the training room, littered with broken bodies and sad men hopping around on one foot, hooked up to machines. I had to get out of there. I expressed my anxiousness to the training staff -- and out came the needles. Two injections of Kenalog into the hamstring attachment, chased with another bottle of pills, and I was back on the field.I made the team, but the hamstring never fully healed and I spent most of the 2005 season on the bench. Come the next April, we were back at it. Pills before practice and a Toradol shot before every game. Toradol is a powerful anti-inflammatory that dulls the pain. It was our Superman juice. A crew of us lined up the night before games. We needed our capes.But nothing comes for free. We would all pay the price in the days that followed, and possibly for the rest of our lives. Toradol thins the blood. Players who filed class actions alleging misuse of the drug say it worsened the effect of concussions, among other things.In 2007, my groin muscle popped off the bone on a kickoff. Thwap! At the hospital, blood was extracted from my arm and put in a centrifuge. Then it was injected back into the muscle attachment, a procedure called platelet-rich plasma injection, or PRP. I went on injured reserve and -- just like that -- my season was over. Percocet again followed, along with his trusty sidekick, depression.But I was older now, and I knew what was waiting at the bottom of that bottle: addiction. I watched it eat up my friends. So instead of diving back into the black river of pills, I decided to exercise the green option. I took no pills. I only inhaled can-nabis, and I healed quickly and com-pletely, through optimistic rehabilitation sessions and $100 worth of marijuana. During practice in Week 12 of my sixth and final season, the same problematic hamstring finally popped off the bone. Thwap! Season over, career soon to follow. A month or so later, I was fired by the Broncos new head coach, Josh McDaniels. His assistant left a message on the answering machine at my parents house. There are no happy endings to this story.Im now seven years removed from football. Recently, I was at the gym and feeling good. Sometimes when Im lifting weights, the blood starts flowing and I taste it again: the Immortal Man.Well, the Immortal Man put 225 pounds on his back and did a set of squats. I felt something jam in the lower spine, and the next day I could hardly walk. Sleeping was difficult. No position was comfortable. I have scar tissue along my lower spine, compressed disks, swollen and inflamed, that will never go away.The difference now is that I get to choose how to treat it. No one hands me an orange bottle. No one puts a needle in my back. Pills might kill the pain, but cannabis reframes it, allowing a speedier recovery and a more complete understanding of the injury. The propensity to kill the pain outright has helped create a dishonest relationship between a players body and the game of football. I guess some would argue that the NFLs approach to pain management works. Look how popular the sport is, after all. Look at the revenue. But in the process, the NFL turns some of the strongest members of our species into pill-popping hospital patients.We shouldnt forget about the human beings -- our brothers, fathers, husbands and sons -- who breathe life into an industry fueled by pain and sacrifice. We all end up broken in the end.Nate Jacksons memoir, Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival From the Bottom of the Pile, was published in 2013. His latest book, Fantasy Man: A Former NFL Players Descent Into the Brutality of Fantasy Football, was published by HarperCollins in September. Nike Zoom Online Shop . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. Wholesale Nike Zoom . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. http://www.wholesalenikezoom.com/ . Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, announced Wednesday that the team would assign Swedish forward Elias Lindholm to his nations team for the upcoming tournament. Nike Zoom Clearance . Pence singled in the winning run with no outs in the ninth inning to give the Giants a 7-6 victory over the San Diego Padres on Sunday. Nike Zoom Sale . As he recorded his 23rd and 24th points of the evening, a segment of the sellout Air Canada Centre crowd expressed their appreciation for the Raptors point guard with a smattering of MVP chants. ATLANTA -- Andrew Bailey cant explain why hes pitching so poorly. He just knows the Philadelphia Phillies might not give him many more chances.Clearly Im struggling. Its frustrating to go through this, he said Sunday after allowing Jeff Francoeurs tiebreaking two-run homer in the seventh inning of the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves.Bailey (3-1) has allowed 19 earned runs in his last 16 2/3 innings.Mauricio Cabrera (2-0), the fourth of six Atlanta pitchers, pitched a one-hit seventh.Jimmy Paredes entered as a defensive replacement in the seventh and homered against Chris Withrow in the eighth.Jim Johnson pitched a hitless ninth for his sixth save in nine chances. After Tommy Josephs leadoff walk, Aaron Altherr grounded into a double play and Carlos Ruiz struck out.Phillies starter Jerad Eickhoff faced one over the minimum and struck out one in five innings, throwing 34 of 51 pitches for strikes. Jace Peterson reached on an infield single in the fourth, but Eickhoff got Freddie Freeman to ground into a double play.Eickhoff was replaced by David Hernandez to begin the sixth following a 24-minute rain delay.Not taking any chances when you sit for a half hour, manager Pete Mackanin said.Bailey allowed four batters to reach that were down two strikes in the count. He elevated a fastball on the outside corner against Franceour but didnt expect him to swing and go to the opposite field.Yeah, it surprised me, Bailey said, but thats kind of the way things are going for me.Philadelphias offense missed on a couple of chances through the first five innings. Altherr ran through third-base coach Juan Samuels sign and was thrown out at third.The Phillies went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position and have hit .151 in those situations over the last 10 games.ddddddddddddFrancoeurs homer was his first at Turner Field as a Brave since June 24, 2009, against the Yankees.When I was 22 or 23, it was like, `Oh, Ill do it again tomorrow, he said. It was a good opportunity to get in there today and contribute.Braves starter Joel De La Cruz gave up three hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings in his third big league start. The 27-year-old made his first start and eighth appearance since July 4, when he gave up seven runs -- four earned -- in the second inning of an 8-2 loss at Philadelphia.HELP ON THE WAYWith the majors least productive offense, Atlanta is eager to have slugger Matt Kemp in the lineup after Saturday nights trade with San Diego. The 31-year-old outfielder is to make his Braves debut Tuesday against Pittsburgh. Kemp was acquired for troubled outfielder Hector Olivera and $10.5 million.SLUMPING FRANCOMaikel Franco is hitless in 17 at-bats, dropping his batting average to .297.BEEN A WHILEWhen the Phillies scored four runs in the eighth of Saturdays 9-5 win, it marked the first time since 1992 that they sent nine straight batters to the plate in an inning without getting a hit. Atlanta walked four, committed two fielding errors and hit a batter.TRAINERS ROOMAtlanta LHP Matt Marksberry was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a rotator cuff inflammation. INF Daniel Castro was recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett.UP NEXT:Phillies: RHP Zach Eflin (3-4) is to start Tuesday against San Francisco. He allowed five hits and no earned runs in six innings of a no-decision June 24 at the Giants.Braves: RHP Mike Foltynewicz (4-4) is slated to pitch Tuesday against Pittsburgh. ' ' '