The Latest Twist in Felix Pie's "Situation"

By Mark Boyer in News on Mar 11, 2008 5:36PM

Last week, we winced at the news that Cubs outfielder Felix Pie had missed time because he was suffering from a "twisted testicle." That little nugget had been buried deep in an MLB.com story about Alfonso Soriano’s fractured finger. Unfortunately for Pie, though, the problem didn’t correct itself, and the Cub was forced to go under the knife last night for corrective surgery.

We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief though, because this morning MLB.com is reporting that Pie’s surgery was successful, adding, "if not corrected, he risked losing the testicle."

Lou Pinella is calling it Pie’s "situation," while the Trib’s Paul Sullivan gingerly referred to it as a "personal problem," but the award for most delicately tiptoeing around the issue goes to the AP, which referred to the injury as an "outpatient procedure for a minor groin injury."

The last time we covered Pie’s twisted testicle, there were a lot of unanswered questions. Turns out, the official diagnosis is a "testicular torsion," which is a medical emergency that's most common among adolescents and results from testicles that are detached from the inner lining of the scrotum. [For a complete summary of what a twisted testicle entails, the Wikipedia entry for "Testicular Torsion" is a good place to start.]

According to Sullivan, "it happened early in camp, but Pie had the problem reduced manually, sources said, and was able to continue playing." But when Pie was experiencing more pain yesterday, they decided to go with the surgery immediately, which involved "sewing the outer layer of the testicle to the scrotum wall." Pie is expected to be out of the lineup for 3-5 days, presumably because he's rocking back and forth in the fetal position, sobbing.

Now let's pretend that none of this ever happened.