There seemed to be enough discussion about Soriano's "hopping" problem, that I thought I'd bring the discussion over here and share with you my lame story about my buddy and his basketball.

A friend of mine and I played basketball in his driveway almost every day one summer when we were about 14 or so.   We kicked the crap out of that basketball -- playing with it in the rain, getting it run over by cars, even chewed up by his neighbor's dog -- and it proved to be an incredibly durable ball. 

One day, I threw the ball up in the air really high to be funny or something and it came down and landed on a barb on his fence.  What are the odds, right?  Well anyway, my buddy got all angry and was going to force me to pay for a new basketball, even though we abused the snot out of it all summer.  Was it my fault that the ball happened to land on the fence?  Probably, yes, but the ball was in poor condition and it's eventual demise couldn't possibly be my fault. 

My point is, that of the thousands and thousands of steps a professional athlete like Soriano takes over the course of a career, it would be highly illogical for us to assume that one silly hop is the reasoning behind his injury.  There are a lot of miles on his 31 year old legs, and if we couldn't accept that he's going to have injuries to them from time to time during an 8 year contract, then we shouldn't have signed him in the first place.  If only he could stay healthy and find the power he had at the end of last year.

Now on to a topic we all can agree on... Like Soriano batting leadoff, for example...  ;-p