Hour 4: Judge Injury Specialist & Jalen Brunson Claim to the NY Crown

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
It's just a beautiful day!
Knicks take game one. Game two tomorrow night. Big underdogs, by the way. Five and a half points to the San Antonio Spurs.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:12)
Still making them underdogs.

**Craig Carton** (0:13)
One day they'll learn, Big Mac. One day they'll learn. So as we celebrate the Knicks winning their first finals game in 27 years, we also get the news that has completely changed the direction of Big Mac's day, and that is Aaron Judge is now having his x-rays and film and MRIs and what not sent to a thoracic outlet syndrome specialist in Texas. Guy's been practicing for more than 40 years. He's, I guess, thought of as one of the top vascular surgeons in the country, and there's a concern, right now it's just a concern, that the injury or the issue that Aaron Judge is dealing with right now is thoracic outlet syndrome. Matt Harvey had it, Chris Wheeler had it. It's basically when your veins get compromised, Zach, pardon me, Zach Wheeler had it, your veins get compromised in between your first rib and your clavicle, and if you take your index finger and your middle finger and make a sideways v out of it, your veins in most people are kind of in the middle of the fingers, right here. So as you build up your muscle, those veins never get compromised or you're pressured. Well, for people that wind up suffering from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, your veins are down towards the v part, the bottom of the v, and because the veins are just located there, as you build up and build up muscle and other things in that area, it starts pressing down on the vein. When that happens, the blood flow stops going down to your arm or to your fingers, and over time, you have a blood clot which has to be taken out. They then repair that vein by taking a vein from other part of your body, and the recovery, while it's not difficult...

**Chris McMonigle** (1:54)
That's what I'm saying. What's the recovery?

**Craig Carton** (1:57)
The recovery, first off, is you're on Coumadin for a year which is a blood thinner. So while baseball is not a contact sport, there's a concern of contact.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:04)
If you bleed.

**Craig Carton** (2:05)
Because you'll bleed out, you'll die. And that's very rare that that would happen, but collision at the plate, that would be a concern, obviously, right?
You're not allowed to do any weight lifting with your upper body at all. For again, he's a world class athlete. I'm sure a much shorter amount of time for him than me, or other people that have had thoracic allele syndrome.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:27)
And you also, not to enough.

**Craig Carton** (2:28)
And you basically have to let your body recover.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:29)
Yeah, you also had it in 99 Things might be different, but you're right.

**Craig Carton** (2:32)
For sure.
I'm not even sure if the way they do the procedure is the same. Yeah, for me, it was taking out my first one.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:39)
I don't think there's any... It's a season ender.

**Craig Carton** (2:41)
It is 100% a season ender.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:42)
It's a season ender.

**Craig Carton** (2:43)
If that's what you have.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:44)
If that's the case. And the one thing I do just want to clarify, not that you necessarily said anything incorrect, his imaging hasn't now been sent to a specialist. They brought in a specialist, like, yesterday to look at it. They're now confirming who that specialist is and what he specializes in. So he's been looking at it already.

**Craig Carton** (3:01)
The guy in Texas?

**Chris McMonigle** (3:02)
Yeah.

**Craig Carton** (3:03)
Got it. Okay.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:04)
He's, they were hoping, they brought him in to look at it today or earlier today. They were hoping to have his opinion by the postgame today.

**Craig Carton** (3:12)
Got it.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:12)
So it's not like now, at this moment, they're shipping it. He's already been looking at it.

**Craig Carton** (3:17)
So he's been looking at it already.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:18)
He's been looking at it and they haven't announced anything.

**Craig Carton** (3:20)
So obviously...

**Chris McMonigle** (3:21)
But my gut, the bad, like, the thing that I'm thinking, this is a HIPAA issue and Judge isn't...

**Craig Carton** (3:26)
No, but it's not HIPAA when it comes to athletes.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:29)
No?

**Craig Carton** (3:29)
Because part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is that they do share their medical records with the team, with the executives, with the owner.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:36)