SECOND SURGERY FOR BRADY, TOO

Surgical procedures performed on athletes routinely are declared to be successful. In a growing number of cases, however, the surgery can fairly be called a success only if one of the goals was to introduce an infection into the patient’s body. Pats quarterback Tom Brady is the latest NFL player to need another procedure to address an infection that arose after his first operation. According to Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe, Brady underwent a second surgery on Wednesday. Per the report, Brady began to feel ill this week due to the infection. Reiss attributes the information to a source close to Brady, but we can’t help but wonder whether the Patriots engineered the release of this fact as a way to subtly contrast the handling of their star quarterback’s second procedure with the bizarrely secretive manner in which the Colts treated Peyton Manning’s second surgery, which likewise was aimed at treating an infection. (More on that in a bit.) Really, if the source close to Brady didn’t blab to Reiss, the information likely wouldn’t have come out until next year, when a then-healthy Brady will likely be giving interviews about his rehab process. So if the information about the second surgery weren’t disclosed now, we likely would have heard various voices in the media complain come July or August that the Patriots hid the information, too, even though the condition of Brady’s knee for strategic reasons has no practical relevance until September 2009.