There are tough guys, and then there are tough guys.
No one doubts Tedy Bruschi is one tough guy.
He's also a great story, something ESPN's fawning announcers never let you forget for a moment the other night even as he and the other 21 players on the field in Foxborough, Mass., tried to play a game.
At one point, Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire seemed so overwhelmed by the emotions of the whole thing that you expected them to share a group hug and maybe shed a tear or two.
But, hey, we're talking about a guy who just eight months ago could hardly see, much less walk. This is a guy who then underwent surgery after that to repair a hole in his heart that doctors believed triggered the stroke.
This is also a guy who seems almost embarrassed that people are making such a big deal out of the whole thing.
They did Sunday night because most had never seen anything like this. Bruschi had no business being on a football field this season, but here he was in the seventh game of the season flying around the field like he didn't have a care in the world.
Many of the 68,756 on hand weren't so sure. They cheered wildly every time Bruschi's name was announced. But they also held their breath every time he collided with an offensive lineman 100 pounds bigger.
In the stands, Rick Stimets wore a blue No. 54 Bruschi jersey that wasn't big enough to cover his conflicted feelings.
"It's bittersweet. It's great for the team, but I don't think he's making the right decision," Stimets said. "As much as I like to see him out there, I'd like to see him healthy."
Bruschi, of course, insists he's healthy. He says every doctor he has seen has cleared him, confident that it was the heart problem that caused the stroke.
He's a football player, probably underpaid at $850,000 a year, but that's what he does. A guy's got to make a living and, besides, NFL careers are notoriously short anyhow.
"Sometimes you just got to pick yourself up off the ground and get back to living your life, and that is all I am trying to do," he said.
Unfortunately, doctors aren't always right. They tend to guess a lot about things like this and, even if the guesses are educated, there are no guarantees.
Joe Mesi would be back earning a living just like Bruschi if he and some of his doctors had their way. Thankfully, they haven't gotten it.
Mesi, you might remember, was on the verge of fighting for the heavyweight title a few years ago. But he had bleeding on the brain after nearly being knocked silly in a fight with Vassiliy Jirov, and Nevada boxing authorities have refused to allow him back in the ring.
Like Bruschi, Mesi came armed with a doctor's note saying everything was OK. He got three neurosurgeons to testify he was no more at risk for further injury than someone who hadn't had a subdural hematoma.
Other doctors disagreed and Nevada stood firm. For once, the system actually worked in boxing.
New England sports fans know better than most that doctors aren't always right.
They remember Reggie Lewis, who was an all-star with the Celtics when he collapsed in the first period of a 1993 playoff game with Charlotte.
A medical "Dream Team" assembled to treat Lewis diagnosed him with a potentially fatal heart problem, and the Celtics said he would probably never play basketball again. Just hours later, though, he transferred to a different hospital where a doctor said he had a minor neurological condition and a normal athlete's heart.
Two months later, Lewis collapsed and died while shooting baskets at Brandeis University. An autopsy revealed his heart was abnormal, enlarged and extensively scarred.
Bruschi's doctors issued a statement a few weeks ago saying he is "exceptionally healthy" and that there's nothing more to worry about than what a 32-year-old linebacker in the violent world of the NFL always has to worry about.
The doctors are all experts in their field and they certainly wouldn't knowingly do anything to put him at risk. Then again, there isn't a large pool of football players who try to come back after suffering a stroke to learn from.
Bruschi himself is convinced he's OK, and, for one night at least, he played like it.
"I gathered all the information and made sure I was safe playing football again," Bruschi said after the game. "And so, once I did that, there was a question of what are you going to do. And I felt like I wanted to get back to living my life and playing football."
So Bruschi is back, doing what he loves and making a living the only way he knows how.
His fans, meanwhile, can only hold their breath and hope that his doctors are right.
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org
