codyross.org

Hi folks.  Been a while since we’ve had a post here, but then again baseball was on hiatus, but now it’s time to ramp things up a bit as spring training is arriving soon.  Today, in my lucky gift bag of RSS feeds came an email of a news article posted by Joe Frisaro on the 17th.  There’s a section on Cody regarding a medical procedure.  It goes as follows:

Ross ready: A relatively new medical procedure has helped Cody Ross overcome a nagging left hamstring problem that caused the outfielder to miss substantial time in 2007.

Limited to 66 games and 173 at-bats a year ago, Ross was willing to try just about anything to strengthen his hamstring for this season.

The 27-year-old outfielder was recommended for examination by renowned physician Dr. Richard Steadman in Vail, Colo., in October.

Steadman asked Ross if he wanted to undergo a procedure. Basically, Ross had blood withdrawn from his arm. It was placed into what he calls a “high-tech machine” that cleans out the blood, leaving in the cells that help healing. The blood was then injected directly into Ross’ hamstring. He received three or four of the injections.

The procedure has paid off.

“They said just relax a couple of weeks and don’t do anything strenuous, and it should help the healing,” Ross said. “I took an MRI. They told me I didn’t have a tear or anything. It was a little scar tissue.”

Ross is one of the early arrival position players who already is doing some light working out at Roger Dean Stadium. Position players take their physicals on Wednesday, and the first full-squad workout is on Thursday.

After his series of injections in October, Ross was advised to rest, and he didn’t start serious running until late November and early December.

“Dr. Steadman is world renowned,” Ross said. “He’s had Olympic skiers, football players, basketball players. Everybody knows about Dr. Steadman and that he is really good with leg injuries. He told me, ‘We have this new procedure if you want to try it. It can’t hurt you. It will help you.’ I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I was ready to try anything.”

Ross enters Spring Training competing for an outfield spot, and he is in the mix to play center field if 20-year-old Cameron Maybin doesn’t win the starting job.