SARASOTA, FL - A team of Cincinnati Reds personnel, assisted by antiquities professors and experts from the Smithsonian Institute, began preparing injury-prone Cincinnati Reds slugger Ken Griffey Jr. for shipment back to Cincinnati for the start of the regular season on April 1.
The time-intensive procedure involves several days of wrapping Griffey in specially-designed wraps, originally used for transporting relics and mummies from ancient Egyptian archaeological sites to labs for DNA testing. This process can take up to three days, team officials said.
"We have to take special care with his extremities," said Reds special assistant trainer Stephen Mandelbaum, a professor of archeology at Columbia University. "The points where his limbs attach to his torso bear a lot of weight, and you can get a lot of stress fractures in that area."
Mandelbaum explained that the procedure is similar to creating a custom mold for Griffey to rest in while being transported that can cushion him from any potentially destructive jostling. The mold has to be remade every season, Mandelbaum explained, to account for any additional weight or casts that Griffey has picked up in the off-season.
Through careful shipping and handling, Mandelbaum said the team hopes that Griffey can play in at least 130 games this season. The Reds added Mandelbaum and other leading academics last season as a response to what is commonly known as the Griffey Shipping Fiasco of 2006, when junior team staffers, left to handle the assignment, forgot to poke breathing holes in the crate Griffey was being shipped in and forgot to mark it at fragile. Griffey suffered slight oxygen deprivation and several other minor injuries, causing him to miss three-quarters of the season.
