Opening day for another season of baseball is just weeks away, yet several Major Leaguers have already been sidelined by a unique musculoskeletal injury. These are not the elbow ligament tears that plague fire balling pitchers (see post from July 23, 2025). Rather they are fractures of a tiny bone in the hand that steal power from sluggers swinging for the outfield bleachers. So far this spring, Corbin Carroll (Arizona Diamondbacks), Francisco Lindor (NY Mets), and Jackson Holliday (Baltimore Orioles) have been sidelined with hook of hamate fractures.
Here is a little anatomical background. To aid recall, medical students have mnemonics for lots of lists, including the eight wrist bones, which link the hand to the forearm. One of the cleaner mnemonics is “She Love To Please The Tall Campus Hero,” which stands in for Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, and Hamate. Hamus in Latin means hook, and the hamate has a “peninsula” that juts into the palm similar to the way that Cape Cod hooks into the Atlantic Ocean.
In the hand, several key ligaments and muscles attach to the hook’s tip. An important nerve and artery pass along one side, while the tendons that close the fingers (and grip baseball bats) fit snuggly on the other.
The good news is that the hook of the hamate is well protected by fat and thick skin in the palm and further by an athletic glove. The bad news is that it is fragile and subject to injury from direct blows, either singular or, perhaps more likely, cumulative. These injuries are notoriously sustained from baseball bats and also on golf clubs when the golfer’s swing is suddenly halted by a tree root. The hook, which is just a little larger than a smashed raisin, snaps off at its base. Pain and weakened grip ensue. The fracture rarely heals without surgery, and although attempts have been made to stabilize the fracture with a tiny screw, the standard treatment is to remove the hook. Batters are out for at least eight weeks and may never fully recover their pre-injury power.
Why the current epidemic? It stems from the way a power hitter holds the bat. Ty Cobb, among others, sometimes held the bat with a gap between his hands, which gave him the ability to direct the ball as he wished. Subsequently, batters may choke up on the bat to provide the same sense of control. By contrast, power hitters, in quest of increased bat speed, hold the bat with their little finger wrapped around the knob, or sadly for the hamate, with their little finger entirely off the bat. Now the hamate’s hook is directly under the knob and subject to its withering force. “Hooked on baseball” takes on a new meaning.
Play ball! (And Go Dodgers!)
