It’s been a rough go for Dan Dierdorf, who pays the price for years of pounding on the rock-hard AstroTurf surface at Busch Stadium II while carving out his Pro Football Hall of Fame career as an offensive lineman with the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals.
Both his hips have been replaced. So have his knees. He needs two canes to walk, and says he needs to stop to rest after going about 50 yards. He has had “12 levels of spinal fusion” and has three rods and 33 screws in his back.
“Football didn’t do this to me; AstroTurf did this to me,” he said this week in a conversation with the Post-Dispatch.