In the past few months, he has operated on McGwire, Cardinal pitcher Andy Benes and Rams running back Marshall Faulk, among others. Like a musician who not only sings and plays but writes great songs, George is a very special team doctor. I don't want to sound too flowery, but he's so good that it makes me want to work harder to make him proud of me. It's just an ideal situation for us. That's important when a big part of the job is working with injured professional athletes - they all want to recover as soon as possible.
Chronic injuries can strain relationships.
But even when an injury involves a star like McGwire, there is always humor. Thousands of unsolicited calls, e-mails, cards and letters advised Paletta and Weinberg how to get him back into the game. The vet prescribed a salve, and she mailed it to the Cardinals. They also heard from a man in North Carolina who had been paging through a 1936 version of the Merck Manual when he decided that the problem was McGwire's diet. Apparently the manual mentioned a correlation between diet and tendon problems.