Koyie Hill Is a Lot Tougher Than You

Last October, Cubs catcher Koyie Hill suffered a freak injury when he cut off four of the fingers on his throwing hand. The injury happened as Hill -- an avid carpenter and general handy man -- was cutting a piece of wood with a table saw. The blade hit a knot in the wood and ... well ... you don’t need the gruesome details. Because playing baseball with six fingers is next to impossible, Hill was told he’d never play ball again. Hill was told wrong, because yesterday he was called up to the bigs as the team expanded to its 40-man roster.

But before that dream came true, it took some genius surgeon to reconnect the fingers:

"They had me hold a ball in my left hand to see where my ring finger was placed, so when they sewed my finger back on, it was fixed in that position," he said. "I guess you could say [my hand] was built for baseball now."

At the time, Hill even considered having the fingers cut off if it would shorten his rehab time. He was told he couldn't throw until January. He was throwing a tennis ball in November.

When his playing days are over, Hill will likely have at least two of the fingers removed.

As you could imagine, his season started rough, with a .158 average in April. He managed to turn things around, however, and was batting .275 with 17 homers and 64 RBI through 113 games when he was called up. Those numbers aren’t bad, but if the hitting thing doesn’t work out in the majors, Hill may wanna consider getting those two fingers lopped off sooner rather than later, and try taking the mound.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.