By now every Patriots fan has seen Tom Brady’s verified Instagram video of a skier, perhaps Brady, crash landing while attempting a ski jump in Montana a couple of weeks ago. On Instagram, Brady got into a short exchange with David Beckham in which he told the soccer star, “Hahaha yeah all good just my left shoulder which isn’t very important to me anyway.’’
Swell. But spending any part of the offseason in a sling is no way for a Super Bowl MVP to enjoy down time. Here’s a little advice for Brady from Jim Lonborg, the former Red Sox Cy Young ace who blew out his knee on the slopes and was never the same pitcher after his breakthrough 22-win season in 1967:
“It’s OK to ski as long as you don’t get hurt. All of us think we’re bulletproof at a young age. You know you’re in great shape, so you feel like you can do anything. But looking backwards, having great skills or great health doesn’t mean you always make great decisions.’’
Lonborg was 25 years old and in the best shape of his life when he hit the slopes in the winter of 1967. He’d just completed his Cy Young season in which he went 22-9, then tacked on two stellar victories over the Cardinals in the World Series.
It all went away for Lonborg when he “caught an edge’’ as he swooshed through some slalom gates at Heavenly Valley in Lake Tahoe just before Christmas. Lonborg went 27-29 for the Red Sox over his next four seasons before being traded to the Brewers. He never returned to his ’67 form.
After retiring from baseball in 1979, Lonborg became a dentist on the South Shore and settled into family life, raising six children with his wife Rosie in Scituate. He’s still practicing dentistry two days a week but he never stopped skiing. It has been a great lifelong activity for the 74-year-old former pitcher and his family.
I caught up with Lonborg last weekend while he was skiing at Beaver Creek, Colo. He’d seen the Brady ski video. It brought back memories from a half-century ago.
“I skied at Heavenly Valley five days a week in January and February of 1967 and got into the best shape of my life,’’ recalled Lonborg. “That was really the major introduction I had to the sport of skiing.
“So a year later, after our great season, on Dec. 22, my buddy and I had had a great day of skiing and we went out to the nightclubs at Harrah’s. We stayed up all night and went out skiing on the morning of the 23rd.
“It was a beautiful day. We skied hard all day. There was a new part of Heavenly Valley that had just opened up. You could ski over the top on the California side over to the Nevada side. The only problem was getting back. You had to make sure you caught the lift that could carry you back to the state line so you could get back to the California side.
“We missed that lift, so we had to hike over the top of the mountain to get back to the California side to get back to our car. So we did that, and got to the top and ran into a slalom race course and decided to do a few of the gates. I caught an edge . . .
“I started to fall and heard a ‘pop, pop, pop.’ It didn’t seem to hurt that much. I dusted myself off and got back up again and started to ski back down, and when I went to make that same left turn, there was nothing left in my knee.
“The ACL was gone. The medial collateral was gone. There was nothing but mush in that knee, so I ended up having to slip-slide down to where I could get on a chairlift.’’
Nothing but mush. Just like the Red Sox season in 1968 when they finished fourth, 17 games behind the Tigers.
“I went into the bar and had a couple of hot buttered rums, grabbed my car to try to drive back home, and my buddy said, ‘You know, you’re not walking well right now and there’s a clinic right there at the bottom of the mountain, let’s stop in there.’
“We did. A guy checked out my knee and said, ‘What do you do for a living?’ I told him I was a professional baseball pitcher. He said, ‘Well, you’re not going to like what I’m going to say to you now. You’ve blown out your knee. You need to see your doctor as soon as possible to get this fixed.’
“I got back to San Francisco. I got back to Boston on the 25th and got checked out by Dr. [Thomas] McGillicuddy and that was it. Surgery at Sancta Maria Hospital.
“I think the Red Sox were first notified when I called Dr. [Thomas] Tierney, who was the team doctor at the time and let him know I had injured my knee and was flying back home. There was nothing contractually prohibiting that activity at that time.
“[General manager] Dick O’Connell was really pissed off and he spent a lot of time talking to Major League Baseball trying to rescind my contract, but there wasn’t anything in there at that time. The next year all the contracts had a ‘no skiing’ clause.’’
What about NFL contracts today?
The standard NFL player contract reads, in part, “Player will not . . . engage in any activity other than football which may involve a significant risk of personal injury . . . Player therefore agrees that Club will have the right . . . to enjoin Player . . . from engaging in any activity other than football which may involve a significant risk of personal injury.’’
When contacted to see whether they had any concerns or even allowed Brady to ski while on vacation, the Patriots had no response.
Far be it from me to tell Brady what to do in his free time — the man definitely deserves a vacation — but I hope he has not deluded himself into thinking he is bulletproof from all injuries. Sometimes when I hear Brady speak on his paid WEEI gig, or to MMQB’s Peter King, he makes it sound as though he has discovered the key to eternal youth and health. He told King he’s “figured out’’ the secret to avoid injuries.
Really? Is this supposed to mean that avocado ice cream and the teachings of guru Alex Guerrero make Brady impervious to the dangers of a Black Diamond ski slope?
Enjoy the rest of the offseason, Tom. But here’s hoping you dial it down when it comes to high-risk activity. I’m told that stamp collecting is a very fine hobby.
Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy
