For this post, I have found fifteen athletes whose careers were cut short by injuries. I'll examine what they did in their careers, and what they could have done, you will see that we potentially missed out on some big things when these players went down.
1. Tracy McGrady
In 16 injury plagued seasons McGrady only played 938 games he mainly had back problems, but he also had knee and shoulder injuries. However, the games he was in he was almost always one of the best players on the court. For his career he only averaged 19.6 PPG . He did though have a stretch of eight seasons in his career where he averaged 26.1 PPG and a 62 point game. In that eight season stretch, he missed 99 games, so how much more impressive would his numbers have been in those seasons? Had he kept up that pace that would've been another 2584 points to his career total. Not only in that eight season stretch either. If he had been healthy he might not have deteriorated as soon as he did and would have been able to keep putting up extremely impressive numbers for another 3-5 seasons, maybe even more. Had he been healthy he could easily have challenged some of the people in the middle of the all time NBA points list.
2. Eric Lindros
Eight concussions, a bum left shoulder, and a few other minor injuries sum up Lindros' history fairly well. It's such a shame he had all that because he should be in the hall of fame as it is, but without even some of the injuries he sustained he's definitely in it by now. In 760 games Lindros put up 372 goals and 493 assists for 865 points, and who knows where those numbers could have gone. In thirteen NHL seasons Lindros missed a whopping 306 games. If you take the points he averaged per game, that's about 348 points missing from his career. Granted, almost no one is healthy all season every season, but it gives you an idea of what we missed out on from Eric Lindros. It's not just the time he missed in those seasons either. Had he not been hurt so much maybe he could've played for another few years adding even more missing points from that total.
3. Lou Gehrig
While 17 seasons in any pro league is quite the feat and is usually considered a long career, I think Lou Gehrig could've had a lot more to give. His career totals are a .340 batting average, 493 homeruns, an OPS of 1.080, and 1,995 RBIs, oh yeah and he played in 2,130 straight games. Those are extremely good numbers and they got him inducted into the hall of fame in 1939. When you look at his stats though, you can already see the numbers decline in 1938, and I think most people reading this know why. Lou Gehrig had Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS. Briefly for those who don't know, ALS breaks down the nerve cells which control voluntary muscle movements, and the affected individual loses the strength and ability to do these voluntary movements. It didn't affect him too badly in 1938, he still put up very good numbers, but in 1939 the disease kept Lou to just eight games and he only batted .143. Had he not had the disease he could have done so much more. Maybe though, the awareness of the disease and it's debilitating effects that have been built through him is more important than a few more years of a great baseball career.
4. Troy Aikman
Troy Aikman missed 28 games over eleven seasons, which in the NFL isn't horrible, but Aikman isn't one who could've been great because he missed time during seasons, his career was cut short. He finished his career with 32,942 total passing yards, he completed 61.5% of his career passes and threw 165TDs. He isn't that high up all time for any of his QB stats, but he is in the hall of fame. His career was cut short by ten concussions, he probably could've kept on playing for more seasons, and who knows how high up he'd be all time in stats?
5. Bo Jackson
Bo is a bit of a trickier athlete to do. He was a very talented multi-sport athlete playing in both the NFL and the MLB. We'll start with his NFL career. In four seasons as an NFL running back Bo rushed for 2,782 yards and averaged an astonishing 5.4 yards per carry. However, in a 1990 playoff game Bo suffered a fairly serious hip injury which ended his NFL career and did damage to his MLB career. Bo had a fairly solid MLB career, and I wouldn't say the injury affected his batting numbers horribly he did have a down year the season after the injury but bounced back fairly well, but it did do damage to his running and his play in the outfield wasn't the same again. It's hard to say if his batting numbers would've been much better with or without the injury, but there's no doubt an NFL great was lost when he went down. Those are some really good numbers he put up and it's too bad he couldn't do it for more than four seasons.
6. Mario Lemieux
915 GP, 690 G, 1,033 A, 1,723 P. I think that paints a pretty good picture of what Mario Lemieux did. Probably one of the most unfortunate careers to be cut short. In 17 seasons Lemieux missed 479 games due to many things, one of the things he's known for is battling back from cancer. He also battled hip and back injuries, and also had an irregular heart beat. Lets say Lemieux had been healthy most of his career. If he had kept up his pace and been healthy most of his career he'd easily have over 2000 points and been around the 2,500 point mark. Second only to Gretzky. Maybe he also could have stuck around a couple years longer and taken a run at Gretzky's record. What I think is also one of the greatest losses. Imagine if he sticks around for a couple years longer, Pittsburgh would have had Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby consistently on the same team, if not the same line for two or more seasons, how incredible would that have been to watch?
7. Bobby Orr
More impressive hockey numbers. 915 points in 657 games played. Oh yeah, and he was a defense man. Bobby Orr is widely regarded as the best defense man to ever play the game. Like most of the people in this list Orr missed a lot of games due to injury. 327 of them to be exact. Using the same method I have before that is about 455 points missing from his career total had he been healthy for every game. That would have put him 3rd place all time for defense men. Also like so many others on this list Orr could have maybe been top all time in defense men for points because he probably could have played multiple seasons after than he did without an injury.
8. J.R. Richard
In ten seasons Richard pitched 1606 innings and had an ERA of 3.15. Which is really incredible. However, his career was cut quite short in 1980 due to a more unusual injury in pro sports. Richard suffered a stroke. In 1981 he tried a rehab program to get back to playing baseball, however he could never quite make it back and in 1983 underwent surgery on his leg. It was then decided that despite almost making a come back it was too risky for him to continue playing and he had to quit. It's hard to say how long he would have continued, but one thing we do know for sure, this was a career cut way too short.
9. Sandy Koufax
Probably one of the stranger injuries to cut a career short is what happened to Sandy Koufax. During the 1965 spring training, Sandy woke up and his arm was black and blue due to hemorrhaging. The doctor he visit told him he'd eventually lose full use of that arm and in 1966, the doctor told him it was time to stop pitching and that his arm couldn't take it anymore. However, Sandy went on to throw 323.0 innings and post an ERA of a very dominant 1.73 that season, and would win World Series MVP. Sandy would then retire at the end of that season. He finished his much too short career with 2324.1 innings pitched with a very low ERA of 2.76. That was in eleven seasons, only six of his seasons were dominant, and unfortunately he was forced to leave in the prime of his career. He could have pitched for a long, long time.
10. Gilbert Arenas
For three seasons Arenas averaged more than 25 points per game, however it was only for three seasons. However, over 11 seasons he missed 350 games. This really hurt his numbers the rest of his career, aside from those three seasons his high was about 23 points per game. His biggest injuries were knee and back problems, and this is what cut many seasons short and even probably cut his career short. Since he only had three really good seasons, it's hard to tell how good he could've been. Would he have been dominant for more years? Or other than those years is mediocrity what his career would've been anyways? It's really hard to say, but we may have missed out on a great with Gilbert Areanas.
11. Rick Dipietro
Signed to a huge contract early in his career, and now his NHL career is likely over. Dipietro showed so much promise for an NHL goalie. However, he has been bit by the injury bug more than most players get it. He's been injured more games than he's played and never even got a chance to show off what he could've done in the NHL. Such a bad loss for both the New York Islanders and the NHL.
There are others who had good careers cut short, but who I'm not going to go into detail. Just in passing here's a few names. Jermaine O'Neal, Yao Ming, Keith Primeau, and Joe Theismann.
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