Greg Bird says ankle spur bothered him all spring training
FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2018, file photo, New York Yankees first baseman Greg Bird fields the ball during a baseball spring exhibition game against the Detroit Tigers, in Tampa, Fla. Yankees manager Aaron Boone says it's too early to know if first baseman Greg Bird will be sidelined opening day Thursday at Toronto because of inflammation in his right foot.Boone said the team should learn Bird's status after he's evaluated Monday, March 26, 2018, by a specialist in New York. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) Credit: AP / Lynne Sladky
Throughout spring training, Greg Bird told anyone who asked — the Yankees included — that he was fine.
Turns out that wasn’t the case.
The first baseman, who had surgery to remove a bone spur from his right ankle March 27, disclosed Sunday morning that the spur had bothered him pretty much all spring training.
That, general manager Brian Cashman said, was news to him.
“We didn’t know of any [problems] in any way, shape or form until Orlando,” Cashman said Sunday. “If we had known about any issues, we would have backed off his work.”
Orlando was a reference to March 24. That day at Disney World, Bird complained of pain after batting practice and was scratched from the game.
“The day before [March 23], I couldn’t stand by the end of the game,” said Bird, who nonetheless traveled to Orlando the next morning.
He missed most of 2017 while dealing with a bone bruise in his right ankle suffered late in spring training that eventually required surgery. He struggled in Florida this year, hitting .154 with a .267 on-base percentage.
The hardest part of this year’s spring training?
“Telling people you feel good all the time and you don’t,” Bird said in his first public remarks since the surgery. “You get to first [base] and people say, ‘I’m glad to see you’re healthy,’ and you’re not and you know that. Telling your friends you feel fine and you don’t. But that’s just how it goes.”
Bird said he felt the spur to a degree last season. The problem is unrelated to the bone bruise.
Cashman said Bird received a PRP (platelet-rich plasma) shot after last season and went home to Colorado for the winter. “His spring training physical was good,” Cashman said. “No issues. He didn’t have any complaints about anything until Orlando.”
Bird has been limited to 94 big-league games since his debut in August 2015. He said it was a case of trying to play “through” something. “I can say for me personally that’s the only way, to keep going, to keep playing, especially here,” said Bird, sounding very much like Derek Jeter. “That’s just how we do it.”
Bird was given a prognosis to return six to eight weeks after the 2018 surgery. “I don’t have a bad ankle. That was told to me by the doctor,” he said. “He said everything in there is fine. He just said you had a bone spur that needed to be taken out.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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