Someone left a typically massive edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia on my desk the other day, or at least I thought as much, but on closer inspection (glasses on), it turned out to be just the current disabled list.

Hoisting it open, I was mildly relieved not to find the name of Cincinnati Reds pitcher Ramon Ortiz, who recently fielded a ground ball with his face, but apparently is clear to start against the Pirates tomorrow night. Lucky Ramon. Most modern players who get within an extended conversation about the disabled list seem to end up on it.

As a long-time student of the DL -- you talk about nothing to do -- I can tell you that generally it includes at any one time about 60 pitchers, but this week there are no fewer than 78 on the list among 130 total players (more than five teams worth) with 29 malfunctioning body parts and/or debilitating conditions. It strikes me that the list is longer than normal, perhaps longer than ever, but a phone call to Major League Baseball attempting to confirm this was not returned, probably because it's all they can do to just update the disabled list.

Every day in your newly re-designed Post-Gazette, we offer American and National League notebooks totalling nearly 1,500 words, 80 percent of which are devoted to significant additions to the disabled list. A ridiculous chunk of the game's best players have been found there in 2005: Bonds, Schilling, Guerrero, Thomas, Schmidt, Bagwell, Wood, Wells, Ordonez, Garciaparra, Griffey, and more.

Oh wait, Griffey has not been on there, but wait a week.

While it's been well documented that there is no clause in Ben Roethlisberger's contract via which the Steelers can deter him from riding a motorcycle, you can only hope there's one that prevents him from playing baseball. Baseball? Are you nuts? They'd sooner have him be a guest on Extreme Cobra Milking than play baseball. This is a game so dangerous you don't even have to be playing to hurt yourself; you merely have to be associated with it.

Perhaps you saw where former Pirate-Giant-Phillie-Yankee-Mariner-Cub-Brave-Dodger-Indian Terry Mulholland rolled over in the Minnesota Twins' team hotel the other night and got a feather from his pillow stuck in his eye. This is probably the goofiest injury since Atlanta's John Smoltz burned his chest while ironing a shirt that he was wearing (caution: to iron, place garment on board, not self) or Nolan Ryan getting bitten by a coyote. Ryan was not disabled, but the coyote went to the 15-day QL (quarantine list) and was subsequently released outright.

Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs is thought to have injured his elbow from typing at the computer too much. Well isn't that ridi ... wait, I think I just felt a twinge. It's the shoulder. It's what I get for even writing about baseball. I might have to come out of the column. Maybe I'll just wait here while our trainer and the editor run over and ask me if I'm OK. Have me throw a few practice verbs ...OK, nuthin'.

In keeping with the established medical research, the shoulder remains the least cooperative anatomical entity when it comes to baseball. Thirty-six players are currently on the DL with shoulder injuries, 25 with elbow injuries, 15 with knee injuries, 7 with hamstring injuries, 5 with thumb injuries, 5 with back injuries, 4 with finger injuries, 4 with ankle injuries, 4 with groin injuries (not yet counting Roger Clemens, who might be headed to the DL), 3 with oblique injuries, 3 with wrist injuries, 2 with forearm injuries, 2 with neck injuries, and more than a dozen others with injuries involving the side, neck, thigh, pectoral, lung, leg, back, inner ear, quadriceps, ribs, foot, and arm.

On top of that, for the first time in memory, two players are on the DL with psychological problems, Rob Bell of the Devil Rays and Tim Worrell of the Phillies. Bell's anxiety caused him to remove himself from a game after five pitches May 10, and Worrell left the Phillies May 6 with "personal psychological issues" apparently contributing to an earned run average of 9.82.

The disabled list, of course, does not include the dozens of players whose injuries are not by definition disabling but might keep them out of the lineup for a few days, players said to be "day to day," but again, aren't we all?

Just to ballpark it, salaries paid to players who aren't playing will total between a quarter and a half billion dollars this summer (yeah, it's a big ballpark), which tends to be irritating to management especially when it can't figure out why this is happening.

Post-modern theories have included steroids (too much muscle for joint capacity) and the radar gun (too many pitchers trying to show off), but the one that is generally dismissed is still the one that makes the most sense to me regarding pitchers. The more pitchers are babied, the more brittle they become. Ryan and Bob Gibson and their ilk used to come to spring training and throw and throw and throw until their arms ached, which to them meant they were ready to pitch. Now we get stories out of spring training about pitchers who might soon actually throw some actual pitches off an actual mound, provided the strain from some simulated pitches from a simulated mound in a simulated game don't result in some soreness and another round-trip ticket to the disabled list.

And for God's sake watch that pitch count.