Wasted away again in NickMargeviciusRitaVille, searchin’ for my long lost shaker of salt. Salt! Salt! Salt!

Growing up I knew all too well the pain that came with having a name that sent substitute teachers clutching their pearls faster than a major league fastball. As the poor sub made their way down the roster, I would mentally prepare myself for whatever Strega Nona concoction of a name they could come up with on that particular day, so it is of no surprise to me that I felt the calling to write up Nick Margevicius’ 40 in 25.

Before I head into talking about the baseball part of Nick, though, I’m going to lead a quick phonetics class on his last name. Repeat after me:

MAR- as in Martina McBride

-GAV- as in Gavin DeGraw

-I- as in Incubus

-CHIS as in Chisel

I can’t speak for Nick, but if you mispronounce his name after this highly academic lesson, I Don’t Want to Be hearing it if you get called out for it. You gotta have the Drive to get it right. Ah, hell, never mind. I can tell you tried and I’m Gonna Love You Through It. In the end, It’s Alright, You’re O.K.

So how are we doing now? Feel confident we could all pass the WASL on baseball names? Cool. Let’s get to Nick.

Where we left off with #52

‘Twas was a chill Sunday afternoon in Beantown and Nicolaus Copernicus Nick Margevicius was firing off heat quicker than the muskets at the Boston Massacre. That’s all to say his heat was few and far between (have you ever loaded a musket?) and what followed this sexy 90mph fastball to get Xander Bogaerts swingin’ silly was apropros to the aforementioned “event.” As in, it was a massacre. To Marge’s ERA.

*disc scratch*

As you can see from the score bug in the above screenshot, the only two options for how this situation would play out were: tempo-defining three straight outs; or four runs are given up and our pitcher hits the IL the next day and doesn’t come back for the rest of the season.

*disc scratch, again*

What followed was, in fact, Marge hitting the 10-day, then 60-day IL and diagnosed first with left shoulder inflammation and then ultimately with thoracic outlet syndrome, which the Mayo Clinic defines as oh shit. Just kidding, that was me.

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

Per the actual Mayo Clinic,

Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is a group of disorders that occur when blood vessels or nerves in the space between your collarbone and your first rib (thoracic outlet) are compressed. This can cause shoulder and neck pain and numbness in your fingers.

Not that any injury is a McDonald’s-Play-Pit-circa-1998 type of fun, but thoracic outlet syndrome definitely isn’t fun. You know when you fall asleep with your arms raised above your head and then you wake up in the middle of the night and they’re “dead?” So TOS isn’t exactly like that and the numbness associated with the injury doesn’t really extend past your fingers (don’t trust me, I’m not a doctor), but the sheer shock of losing the ability to feel anything with your upper noodle appendages is alarming.

The Rocky Mountain Brain n’ Spine Institute Galore of America Extravaganza states that there is a protocol in Major League Baseball when it comes to TOS.

*clears throat*

[The recovery process,] it’s about 3-4 days in the hospital, followed by 3-4 weeks of therapy, light tossing at 6 weeks, and all-clear around 12 weeks.

12 weeks, eh? EH???

At the time of this writing it has been over 11 months since our Cleveland, OH native hit the IL and if my math is correct, that’s more than 12 weeks. So time means nothing and calling yourself an “Institute Galore of America Extravaganza” means nothing.

TOS is famously the beetle-chirp-from-Practical-Magic that hit Matt Harvey and Chris Archer and neither have quite been themselves ever since and while this isn’t a 40-in-25 about Harvey, Archer, or TOS, it’s unfortunately now a part of Marge’s career story.

We are not our worst injury

The life of a serious sports injury looks a little like this:

1. Ouch, I am hurt
2. Recovery (Eminem, 2010)
3. ???
4. Profit

What that “???” is truly undefinable. What is right for one patient could be the absolute wrong treatment plan for another. But there is one constant and crucial step among all recoveries and that’s where we find Marge at now: the mental game.

Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald

This photo captures one of the last moments #52 saw time in a Major League game. What followed was a nearly year-long process of surgery, rehab, and working his butt off to step on a mound again and on my birthday March 22nd he did just that.

What’s to follow for Marge’s 2022 season remains to be seen. At the moment it appears that he’ll be continuing to get back into his (Emperor’s New) Groove at Cheney Stadium with the Rainiers and from there we’ll see how he progresses. At this point it’s about the mental game and believing in himself that he can get back on the horse and become the pitcher he knows he’s capable of being.

Kaip tu sakai “a good comeback story?”

Upon a great deal of expert research (Googling for more than one minute) I found that “Margevicius” is Lithuanian. However, the meaning of the name isn’t listed anywhere which means that we get to make that up (we absolutely do not but go along with it).

Ahem, per Lookout Landing Language Learning, Margevicius is pronounced and defined as:

MAR- as in mark 2022 down as the year he proves TOS isn’t career-ending.

-GAV- as in bang the gavel and quiet the doubters.

-I- as in inundated with positive reinforcement by the fans.

-CHIS as in ooh boy that is one chiseled comeback story you’re working on and also I know I already used “chisel” but do you know how many words sound like “-chis” in the English language

Good luck, Marge, you got this.

What say you?