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Joshua Kuroda-Grauer Exploding His Own Nuts Has Shot Baseball to the Top of My “Most Dangerous Sports” Rankings

By Matt Schultz

Published: Jul 23rd, 2026 · 10:29 AM EDT

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I wonder sometimes, if and when I have kids, whether I’d let them play certain sports. 

Football seems like a no. That’s a dangerous one. All that tackling. Big hits. Slamming heads into other heads on the line. CTE. You don’t want that. I saw the Will Smith movie. Plus those guys shooting themselves in the chest. Dark stuff. Football’s probably out.

Hockey is dicey. I grew up playing, and I’m certain it’s given me quite a few undiagnosed concussions. That couldn’t have been good. Who knows where I’d be if that never happened. Engineer. Doctor. A guy with an office to go to. But I got concussions. I write for a blog. I’m writing this laying down. (Kinkead: get off your lazy ass, this isn’t Jackson Frank asking Doc Rivers a question while laying in bed)

Soccer. Lacrosse. Skateboarding. Wrestling. Field hockey. Cycling. Horseback riding. The list goes on and on. I can easily imagine all of these going wrong in many, many ways. For safety reasons, if my kid was gung-ho on doing any of these, I know I’d have to give it some real thought. 

But one sport I never thought I’d have to think about is baseball. Baseball always seemed fine to me, especially at the youth level. What’s the worst that could happen? You get hit by a pitch. A grounder takes a weird hop and gets you in the chin. Big whoop. Walk it off, I thought…

Then I saw Joshua Kuroda-Grauer foul tip a ball directly into his sack and explode his own nuts, which has rocketed baseball to the top of my list of most dangerous sports: 

Prayers up for Joshua Kuroda-Grauer who fouled a ball off his balls….stayed in the game, hit a single and then had to have surgery for a ruptured testicle. pic.twitter.com/KKN7nxbmd5

— Barstool Baseball (@StoolBaseball) July 21, 2026

Rewatching this footage a handful of times, a few thoughts ran through my mind:

-This is undoubtedly the most gruesome sports injury I have ever seen. It’s hard to imagine the pain this guy was in. It’s hard to picture how rough it was for him later on when the doctors told him what happened. Hearing a doctor say “ruptured” and “testicle” together would’ve made me vomit on my lap, then frantically spew questions rapid-fire, trying and failing to hold back tears: “What’s my nut look like now?” I’d beg the doctor to tell me. “Is it gone? Did it like disintegrate? Or is it just like mushed? Is it flat now, like a hamburger bun that got stepped on? Or is it fully dust? What do you mean ruptured?” My shrieks and cries would echo down the halls of the hospital. Several doctors would rush into the room to restrain me as I flailed around, ripping tubes out of my nose, trying to stand. One would stick a needle into my arm, a sedative, I’d realize, just before everything went black. 

-To think that this guy ended up finishing this at-bat and notching a single is more than remarkable – it’s one of the single greatest sports accomplishments of all time. Put him in the Hall of Fame. Or at least put his pulverized nut on display. 

-CTE is bad. Concussions are bad. Broken wrists, sprained ankles, torn ACL’s – all not good. But exploded nuts are something else entirely. It’s a cartoon injury. It’s some Wile. E. Coyote stuff. Baseball is the most dangerous sport now. If my child ever wants to play, I’m going to be a responsible parent and steer them toward MMA instead. 

Godspeed, Joshua Kuroda-Grauer. Heal up soon.