JUPITER, Fla. • A day or so earlier, Tommy Pham dove back to first base to avoid a pickoff and his right shoulder split apart, the labrum ripped from the bone like the lid of a yogurt cup. He lie there, safe, but in “the most pain I’ve ever been.”
Twelve games into his return from a wrist injury, Pham now faced shoulder surgery, the installation of 12 anchors to reattach the labrum, and 2012, just another in a line of lost seasons. He felt the tick-tick-tick of the timer on his baseball career, and then the phone rang.