Summertime bruise

Parents remember that time when they knew something was wrong, when a child staggered inside with a knot on his head visible across the room. Odds are, those memories happened in the summer, when sports injuries for the old and young rise with the temperatures.

Foot and knee injuries are the most common and likely will be again as children in the yard vicariously join the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada starting June 6. Yet sports and all, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh can see its childhood trauma cases double in the summer months. Adult cases can rise by 25 percent.

Wearing a bicycle helmet would reduce that number, as bikes carry one of the highest emergency room rates. For adults over 25, cycling is the most dangerous activity per athlete. Most injuries, though, need little more than an ice pack. Across ages, 1.5 million are injured playing basketball, the nation’s most popular summer sport.

Many strains and persistent aches, though, come from overuse or being out of shape. Baseball pitchers don’t skip the bullpen and go try 95 mph the first pitch, yet that’s how many American adults treat Memorial Day weekend. Among kids, half of yearly sports injuries are due to overuse, which can be curtailed with proper rest and by varying the sports children play.

But all precautions aside, ankles will sprain as surely as cars will crash. Lest you think you’re immune: 114,000 persons in 2013 injured themselves playing golf.

All-star violence

In a first for the nation’s largest sports league for women, the WNBA suspended All-Stars Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson for seven games on May 15 after a fight led to assault charges. A domestic dispute between the then-fiancées on April 22 escalated to blows and the throwing of objects, reports say.

Griner and Johnson are the first active players in the WNBA to face domestic violence accusations—and the first pro players since the NFL’s Ray Rice scandal brought urgency to the issue last year. WNBA President Laurel Richie issued the longest suspension in league history, consulting domestic violence and law enforcement experts, along with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. “It is our strong belief that violence has absolutely no place in society, in sports, or in this league,” Richie stated.

The couple’s suspension is 20 percent of the WNBA season, which begins June 5. Griner agreed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and attend counseling, after which the charge may be dropped. Johnson’s legal case is pending. The couple legally married May 8. —A.B.

Going Soviet

Slava Fetisov, a former Soviet hockey captain who risked his freedom to come to the NHL, has proposed Soviet-like restrictions on players as relations sour with the West. He once fought Soviet limits on his talents that made him feel “like a slave.” Now, as a Russian senator, he would force Russian players to stay in the near-bankrupt KHL until they’re 28. A former sports minister for Putin, whom he taught to skate, Fetisov mourned 40 players leaving Russia for the West. Fetisov’s proposal would keep players in Russia until they’re eligible to be unrestricted free agents. For perspective, 10-year NHL veteran and future Hall of Famer Alex Ovechkin is 29. —A.B.