Fox 9 Investigates!

Those of you in the Twin Cities Metro probably know about the flak Fox 9 has been getting about their hard-hitting exposes on things like psychics, naughty massage parlors, and underage college hockey players who drink. Shocking, I know.

Well, chalk up another profound story last night. Titled "Injury Plague", Fox9 did a story on the prevalence of serious injuries in high school athletics and their supposed increased frequency.

**Disclaimer: Keep in mind I have a degree in statistics, have torn my left ACL twice, and nearly burst a blood vessel yelling at the TV during this broadcast. The facts are as close as I can remember as I may or may not have blacked out in the middle from extreme exposure to stupidity and lack of context.**

Interview subjects include:
1) A female soccer player who blew one ACL, rehabbed for five months, and then proceeded to blow her other knee out (ignoring the classic case of over-compensation on your good knee when trying to come back too soon, although Fox9 only admitted that women are 4-8 times more likely to suffer a knee injury than men)
2) A male baseball player who wore had to have serious elbow reconstruction, which Fox9 blamed on overuse (ignoring that throwing curves year-round since age 9 or 10 does most of the damage)

Their grand conclusion? The increase of injuries is mostly due to an increase in the number of participants and improper deceleration. They also made the bold statement that football has the most injuries of any sport.

Now that's mind-blowing shit right there!! Even if the injury rate per 10 kids had decreased, an overall increase in number of subjects could still result in more total injuries as compared to last year or the year before. Combine that with better diagnosing abilities and better ortho docs and voila, more injuries! These people would be better suited to investigate the relation between the number of pirates and the average global temp.

Basically, all they were able to prove was that kids playing sports in high school get injured (especially football players). Congrats, your Edward R. Murrow Award is in the mail.