8/11 The boot
I’ll get an X-ray in the next couple days just to follow up and see how the bone’s healing. Hopefully, if the bone is healing all right, I’ll be close to getting out of this boot. I’m hoping they say it’s OK so I can walk around a little bit without the boot.
I can’t do much. If I have the boot on, I can throw a little bit. I wore tennis shoes yesterday and walked around a little bit and once I got loose, it was fine. Hopefully, it progresses pretty quick. I’ve been doing everything — taking vitamins and calcium pills and doing everything I can to move this thing along. I’m not drinking gallons of milk, I’m just trying to take care of it. When the team was on the road, I came in and got treatment. It’s tough with a fracture. You can’t rehab it, you just have to sit and let it heal.
— Reed
Reed Between the Lines 
So unfortunate! = ( I bought my tickets to tomorrow’s game before the season started (my birthday is tomorrow) and it’s too bad I won’t get to see you play! I hope you heal up quick and you and the rest of the team can stay healthy. Good luck!
Reed,
Glad to hear your healing process is going well. It must be frustrated to be on the DL again. The Cubs have really been bitten by the injury bug this year. I guess we are lucky to be only 2 out of first while our team is decimated by injuries. Hopefully we can hang in there until we get you , Lilly,Z,Aram etc back. This has been a very frustrating year because we get one guy back and 2 more go down. Let’s hope we get healthy and finish up strong. Hope you’re back soon, we miss you! Mary R.
REEDER, I KNOW YOU WILL BE READY WHEN IT’S CRUNCH TIME. THEY ARE GOING TO NEED YOU DOWN THE STRETCH. ANY CHANCE YOU’LL BE READY TO PLAY IN S.D.? WHEN ARE YOU SCHEDULED TO COME OFF THE DL? PRAYING YOU GET TO FULL STRENGTH REAL SOON. S.C.
listen reed.. how does someone loose a game 4-3 vs a team who only gets three hits… this cubs group is pathetic… we need you back to do something right… and Jim Hendry sucks for getting two subpar pitchers from the worst team ever made …. i am sorry but, there is not a chance for anything good to happen this year… the 09 cubs are really really bad..
I can’t wait to see you back out there. We need a spark. Something. Anything. Harden pitched a great game tonight and…well! You saw the same game I did, I’m sure.
~Reed~
Hope your recovery is speedy, we missed having you there in Colorado when my sister and I attended the only game we won. I am hoping the rest of the year we can do something magical and win some games. I’ll still love my Cubs no matter what happens, though. Go Cubs Go!
~Milli~
Good luck! I hope it heals up soon!
Julia
http://werbiefitz.mlblogs.com/
Hey Reed! Boy I’ve missed seeing you on the field and on your blog. Heal fast and get back to work! THE CUBS NEED YOU!!!
Sending you a healthy vibe…
Emily
Hey Reed!
I saw you at Wrigley before the Iowa Cubs/Las Vegas 51’s game. I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I tossed you my baseball, and I was the first person you signed for.
Hope you get better soon- the team needs you! Take care and good luck Reed.
Miss the anticipation of seeing if you would be in the line up or not. We still record all the games, but knowing you won’t be playing… there’s no rush to get home and watch it right away!
😦 Seeing how fit you are and how hard you work to get that way, we have our fingers crossed that we’ll be seeing you play the Padres and the Doyers (as the LA fans pronounce it!).
Drink Green tea. it couldn’t hurt, it helps everything else. LOL
Take care Reed and see you center in SoCal.
hope your recovery is a good and quick one, Reed
we need you back in the lineup to rob people of more grand slams!
andromeda.mlblogs.com
GET BACK AS SOON AS YOU CAN!! Boy, does my family miss seeing you play! We will be a fan regardless of where you are playing. Great hustle! Great ball player!
Get Well Soon!!
It will be nice to see you back soon. The team is experiencing chemistry problems, even though none of you will say it to the press. The same thing happened to the Rockies, and once they dumped the guy with the bad attitude, they became a winning team. This was told to me by a member of the Rockies organization, who said Jeff Baker is bad news. Just a week ago the Cubs managed to be in first place, despite the injuries and hitting slumps, plus subpar bullpen. Fontenot has struggled since June, but had just begun to hit, when Lou benched him, even against right handers. Jeff Baker has hit well in that week, but not produced runs, and the team took a nosedive. Baker tries to look cool on defense by making easy plays look difficult, while Mike makes difficult plays look easy. There were several ball hit between first and second today, that the 6′ 2″ Baker didn’t even go after, and the 5′ 5″ Fontenot would have ,at least tried to knock down. Baker can get a hit every time he bats, but not help his team win. If he is now the regular second baseman, you will not reach the playoffs. Baker is out to look good, but is not a team player, and that hot streak won’t last. Hopefully, Lou will see the light.
whatever….. unless the Cubs pitching starts shutting down the enemy hitters, this season is over…. I am already starting to eyeball the wildcard race… Tell Hendry he is an idiot for not going after Freddy Sanchez and getting that bum Baker instead.. It would have made the difference… With a platoon at 2nd, there would have been more than enough security to risk injury with Sanchez… When dude is healthy he is the best 2nd baseman in the game…. Adding another mediocre journeyman in Baker was foolish… Sanchez was the ticket… His bat would have kept the Cubs in it till the pitchers came back off the DL… but now.. still a giant hole in 2nd base.. Champions don’t have weaknesses like that… Sanchez would have filled the gap and been there for the playoffs… but nooooooo we needed another weaker version of Mark Derosa instead of an all star caliber but sometimes injured Freddy Sanchez.. So what if Jeff Baker is going to be healthy in the playoffs.. He will strike out and suck…. It’s the same as Freddy Sanchez sitting in a hospital bed like Reed here… But, when Freddy can play…. It’s another Derrek Lee at the plate and on the field… My God… get healthy and smack Hendry… He screwed up this time… and we were close…. Jeff Baker… my God.. San Fran got Freddy Sanchez cheap as hell…. The Cubs could have easily out offered those 3 minor league chumps.. Way to keep the Cubs near first Reed… As you can see the Cubs blow without ya.. and without a good 2nd baseman
Hurry Back before we are 10 games out of it.
Reed,
Praying for you to have a healthy recovery from your injury, for continued success in your profession, and in your personal life as well. God bless you and your family. Truly, I mean it. By the way, I will never forget the catch vs. Milwaukee to rob Fielder. Just legendary.
Reed,
I just heard from your cousin, Dale, you’re not making it out here. Get well soon. At least your laptop will be fixed!
Thanks for the signed ball!
Get well soon reed, we sure could use you right now! how’s gregg doing today? Think he’s out as closer? That dude has had a rough season and i think it’s time for a change. Quite frankly I think Kevin Gregg doesn’t deserve these leads. We need Piniella to do his best Alec Baldwin impression on the Cubs clubhouse and find someone who will follow the simple A-Always B-Be C-Closing formula. Otherwise, in ’09, only thing we’re winning is a set of steak knives.
Ryan
Prose and Ivy
http://onedayatwrigleyac000000.mlblogs.com/
Reed, you’re the man! all of us Cub fans appreciate you doing whatever you can do to get back out there… we can use you now brother! be good, and we’ll see you on the field asap!
Reed, please come back and get something going, i haven’t seen a team just go through the motions as bad as this. We need you back. Get healthy man!
We need you back! Ive never seen a team go through the motions as bad as ive seen as tonight. We need you back!
Reed, Even if you can’t play now, your presence in the clubhouse is needed. Jeff baker seems to think he was brought in to provide leadership, but is providing negative
examples. Sure, he is on a hot streak, and currently is the best hitter on the club, but he is out of sync with his team mates. Since he has become a starter, the team has lost most of the games played, despite his hot bat. Runners are still on base after double play balls are hit because Baker tries to showboat instead of quickly flipping to Theriot. Those runners score. Without him in the lineup, on Monday, the Padres were scoreless until the ninth, when balls hit to the outfield and beyond lost us the game. He needs to use that hot bat off the bench, when we need someone who can guarantee a hit.
We need a clubhouse leader who doesn’t think he is better than his team mates, and who doesn’t bad mouth them to the media. Come back, Reed
Having Reed withdrawls-hurry back soon. When you are on the DL are you allowed to sit on the bench during games? If not, what do you do?
YO REED !!!….. Screw these losers pushing you to hurry back to the field… My coaches and community and fellow students all pushed me to do that for football and now I walk funny… Get yourself healed, this isn’t a war where someone is going to kill your family if you fail… It’s a job and nothing more….. You coming back isn’t going to make Soriano hit the curveball or Bradley to lay off the super-inside pitch that he loves to swing at and miss…. It won’t help Theriot break out of his natural occuring slump.. and it won’t speed up Ramirez getting the rust off.. I don’t know if it was the new owner taking so long to come in or what, but the whole team just seems to be off the same page…. There is no reason to lose the series to the last place Padres, even with a injured squad…. No, there is something going on with the new owner I think that is disrupting the focus on baseball… the upper office is probably sweating losing their jobs and all kinds of crap.. Tell the Ricketts family to put all of you guys on a modified convoy of school buses to finish out the season or give up any hope for the playoffs.. The team needs to seperate itself from the front office as much as humanly possible…. the officers need to let the soldiers fight without changing strategy and put up the consistency of being hands off…. tell the Ricketts family to save the changes for the offseason and guarantee everyone is safe in their job… I know the Ricketts family is in a hurry to do what they want… but it won’t happen this season, so use this time to prepare for the changes and think everything out while the season finishes… The Cubs problem this year isn’t anyone on the team…. it’s corporate changes and the instability that creates… and it is bleeding down to the team and how they play… which is not good…. I would take all pressure off of Piniella to win, tell him the season is a wash because of the owner change,and just do his best to have fun and make the best of it… then maybe the guys can loosen up and play…. But, Reed….don’t be an A-hole…. your game is just starting to be recognized… don’t kill yourself trying to come back to soon… then that fracture will turn into a break and you losing speed and quickness… maintaina nd get healthy… from an old athlete to a current athlete…. it’s just a job… heal yourself…..No UAW worker has to come back on the line till 6 months after they heal, so no blue collar worker has the right to give you the business about coming back prematurely… I want to see Reed Johnson on this team for the next 10 years…. We lost Mark Prior to nonsense like this… so please… don’t come back till you know you are 100%…. cash in the season if you have to… do yourself right… we all know you do the team right and try on every play… we know you got heart… just heal, man
Get back as soon as YOU ARE ABLE! Will be great to see some hustle again. You are the working mans perfect baseball hero!! You play ball the same way we live life, giving it your all every day. You show up ready to play everyday, regardless if you are on that days roster or not…
(Ahem! Soriano)
Get better as soon as you can!!! The Cubs need you, the fans need you, Baseball needs 100 more like you!
Ok…. I am watching the wild card chances slip away… season over… in hindsight only one thing upsets me….. and I pray someone prints this up and hands it to Lou Piniella….. Reed Johnson deserved to be the everyday starter over Fukudome….. I understand Lou goes by the numbers and tries to match up players to get the advantage and Fukudome comes with a left handed bat…. I understand how that works 97% of the time and is a dang good formula to manage by….. by in the small details, Reed Johnson is by far superior to Fukudome…. Reed runs the bases better and faster… Reed plays better defense… and Reed is the Pitch Count Master…. No one works the pitch count like Reed Johnson…. and you can whine and cry about offense all you want…. nothing does an offense better than facing the #6 starting pitcher/middle reliever…. every team has a bullpen full of “not good enough to starts”….You give Reed 2 ABs as the leadoff hitter and 35 out of 100 pitches get used up by the other team’s starting pitcher… cause they hit 100 pitches, and it is the 4th inning, they get pulled… I could seriously teach Lou Piniella a thing about managing.. and he could teach me a 100,000 things about baseball I am sure…. but working that pitch count and getting to the bullpen faster is BY FAR theeeeee best baseball managing strategy… If I was the owner of the Cubs, I would do just as jsclmedave suggested and get nothing but batters who never strike out and burn up pitches… You don’t score runs on the starting pitcher…. you score runs against the middle reliever…. and the set up man… and the closer… and you send that team off to the next city with a bullpen full of jelly arms who can’t pitch…. and they lose 3 more games…. making it essentially 6 wins for the cubs…. I mean… left handed bat vs right bat has absolutely nothing to do with a player who can foul off pitch after pitch till he gets the one he wants… and Reed does just that….. COME ON !!!!……. The steroid days are over…. it’s time to get back to baseball….. Reed Johnson not only should be an everyday starter…. he should be mentioned for the all star game….. he’s like Ty Cobb minus the .400 BA (cause he don’t work out like Ty Cobb did)…. Lou’s problem is he is still in 1988….. Roids are over Lou….. You don’t get the same power you used to… it’s small ball again baby… burn up that good pitcher so the lousy one can serve up the meatballs….. somebody pass this on… it’s good advice.. If you want to go by a stat Lou, Hendry, and Scouts…. go by how many pitches the player makes the pitcher throw as a little tiny consideration/tie breaker stat…. The Cubs were barking at first with Reed Johnson, and now they can’t win against the freaking Padres…. says a lot… says the Padres probably didn’t have to touch their bullpen cause Reed wasn’t burning up 12 pitches in a single AB….. It’s the little extras that win the game… in football they call it special teams.. in basketball they call him the 6th man off the bench… in baseball, it’s someone who can get that all star pitcher out of the way and bring in the inconsistent pitcher to increase your own odds… Podsednik would be a great addition next year… who else makes the pitcher work hard and rarely strikes out ?…. Jeter…. Hanley Ramirez… all star… all star…. all star…. Reed Johnson…. all star… all star… all star….. there is a pattern here… why let the left handed strike out on 4 pitches guy play when you got Reed Johnson ?……Open your eyeballs Lou…..You had your leadoff man the whole season but never brought your head up out of the stat books to see what was going on… somebody print this up… give it to em… Lou still has room to get better… We all do… Small ball Lou…. work those pitch counts in the first 5 innings, then bring in your sledgehammers (Fox, Hoffpauer, Bradley) to jack the ball… But, the first 5 innings should be Reed Johnson and another contact hitter who is able to burn up pitches and get a hit in the end of a long AB… That is how you win ball games.. and these starting pitchers are better than they have ever been… there were no baseball clinics when I was a kid… Kid’s now are ten times more knowledgable about baseball because of these clinincs and video game simulations… those starting pitchers don’t get beat easily… you have to move them out of the way and take on the minor league caliber pitcher filling the spot in the bullpen.. and by game 3, the best of their bullpen has already been used up… screw left handed vs matchups….. Reed is the best outfielder on the Cubs roster at this moment in time.. Bradley can’t hit.. Fukudome never seen a pitch he didn’t like to swing at, and Soriano…. why any team throws him anything but 3 curveball is beyond me.. k1, k2, k3 your out, as usual….. I can’t say it enough…. burn up pitches… get through the SP by the 5th inning, and the Cubs win every time…
The reason the team is in a free fall is not the playing of better teams; it is the morale. We played those teams earlier this year without this result. When a manager abuses the most vulnerable of his men, it affects the rest. In April, we had a complete team, and we were winning. Then Ramirez got hurt, and Piniella insisted on playing Fontenot at third, where he had no experience, despite being an excellent 2nd baseman, and having a vision problem that limited him to the one position he had played since childhood. His hitting took a nosedive, because his focusing was compromised. Others also were not hitting, but the hitting coach and even the manager worked with them, until they got better. Very little was done for Fontenot because he has no multi million dollar contract, and so was expendable. The Cubs traded for a weak hitting utility infielder, and put him at 2nd base. He went on a 2 week hitting spree, and was awarded the position on that basis alone, and then began to complain that he didn’t want to play alongside the 5′ 11″ Theriot because he previously played with Tulowitzki, who is unusually tall for a shortstop. Is there any wonder that the team has failed to hit as a team, when one of the most popular players is thrown under the bus? The way the most vulnerable player is treated can seriously bring a team down. The good news is that it is not too late to turn things around, but time is running out.
Hey Reed! Sam Fuld is filling in where you left off. He plays with heart and hustle just like you. Only wish this style of play was contagious. It has been snoozerville in Cub world all season. ZZZ
Reed,
It’s Anthony Mendez. Just checking in to see how things are coming along. I keep up to date for the most part talking to Lyndon and Patti here at work. I am sorry to see that you are hurting brother.
I hope that you got the Golden Bear gear that I sent you. Let me know if there is anything else you need.
Hope the road to recovery is short. I know that you will be back soon.
Hope the wife and other family are all doing well.
Take care brother.
Anthony
Hey Reed,
Really miss you and your style of play out there, especially now. Like books5 said, it is good to see Sam Fuld out there playing like he’s a mini-wrecking ball. You must be giving him tips on how to defy walls and fences on the sly, huh?
Don’t know what else to say, given the way things have gone. You were one of the players I looked forward to coming back this year and the freak injuries just prevented that. As it’s unlikely we’ll be in the playoffs this year, and I don’t know if you’ll be back next year in Cubby Blue, I just wanted to say thanks for playing for us. Thanks for always hustling and not being an excuse-giver. Thanks for taking the time to blog.
Wish things had gone differently, obviously.
Hey Reed, Hope your doing well! We sure miss you! Our daughter Ashley Fisher who is 9 asks about you everyday!
You are her favorite player. She has even named one of our kittens Reed. She is going in for surgery on her foot on Sept. 1st @ Comers Children hospital. Well, we hope to see you back on the field soon and we really appreciate the way you play the game.
Take care of yourself.
Bob and Tricia Fisher