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He Cut His Pinky to Play: The Ronnie Lott Story · D-constructing Topics

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  What's going on, everybody? And what's going on, folks?
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  My name is David, and I'm your host of this legendary podcast,
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  the Deconstructing Topic Podcast. And let's rewind.
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  Time out. Hold on. Hold on. We got a nice little football and life episode.
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  If you're a sports fan, tune in because it's a great story.
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  If you are a fan of life and commitment and decision and all that,
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  then tune in. You'll love this about this going on. And let me rewind once again.
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  I am your legendary host of this legendary podcast, the Deconstructing Topic Podcast.
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  And you already know, for those people out there, I did a couple of episodes already.
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  I think, no, I did one. I got more episodes. My New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals.
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  And we're just waiting, by the time that you listen to this,
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  we are waiting for game seven between the OKC Thunder, of the Oklahoma City
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  Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs.
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  Hey, let them duke it out, get chippy, go crazy, whatever the case might be.
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  But anyways, coming into this story or coming in, not just this story in the
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  podcast, but in the finals, the news was about Mitchell Robinson.
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  The son of the New York Knicks who, for some reason, is having an issue with
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  the pinky, but it looks like he will play. He has some surgery.
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  I don't know what happened, but it kind of brought me back to this kind of story of a pinky.
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  Yeah, a pinky. Now, keep in mind, heads up.
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  It might get a little bit, how can I say, a little bit detail and a little bit
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  gruesome. So please keep that in mind.
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  If you ever had an injury or something that had broken in your body,
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  it just didn't look right.
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  And it happened to me in my car accident. It just didn't look right.
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  Hey, listen, just continue to listen. Always hit that like and comment.
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  And let me know what you think about this story.
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  Because we have the Ronnie Lott and the Pinky story.
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  Ooh, 348. Hot, hot. Let's go. Let's go.
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  Let's make it happen. So feel free to hit the like, comment,
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  and I'm all over the place.
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  You already know. I'm on the YouTube, Spotify, Apple, T-Juice TV.
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  Let's go. We making it happen.
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  We're definitely all over the place. So when you sit down and all that good stuff,
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  hey, listen, put everybody all together, especially football fans and sports
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  fans, this is going to be an interesting story because that Mitchell Robinson
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  pinky situation, again, we into the finals.
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  First time in 1999 and i'm
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  gonna go on a limb and i will go on
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  a limb and guarantee that my boy mitcher
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  robinson wants to play and there's no stopping him now you might say damn baby
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  you don't you don't think that's a little bit selfish as a sports fan knicks
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  fan or whatever that you want this player to kind of sacrifice his pinky and
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  his and his future and his livelihood to win,
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  So no comment. That's why I'm going to do this story, which is the Ronnie Lodge
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  story. And this crazy story is crazy.
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  And welcome to this podcast. When we do something, we tell these stories and
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  these powerful stories that will make you feel like, wow.
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  Sometimes in life, it's all about that discipline, focus, and resilience.
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  And today's story is about a football player. More than that,
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  it's a decision that shows what true commitment to it. So I'm over here.
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  As I'm looking at, you're looking at the screen, which is Ronnie Lott.
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  I'm a New York Giants fan. Ronnie Lott played for the San Francisco 49ers,
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  and he played many seasons, and he's in the Hall of Fame.
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  I mean, Ronnie Lott in the 80s was a beast, one of the heavy hitters out there.
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  If you are, again, if you follow sports, he was a free safety, if I'm not mistaken.
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  So that means that he's free to do whatever the case might be,
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  as long as nobody scored touchdowns. So he's hated.
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  He's doing all these crazy things. And I'm like, okay, that's finally that.
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  But years ago, over a decade ago, I heard a story.
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  Even me, I'm a New York Giants fan. And for me to be a Giants fan and to give props to this story.
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  Of this football player who had one game.
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  There was a game, in my understanding, there was a game against the Dallas Cowboys,
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  the San Francisco 49ers.
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  They were dominant defending champions. You know, they want to get to the back,
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  you know, back to back. They want to get to three Super Bowls.
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  They want to dominate the 80s.
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  And towards the end of the season, and it's a 16-game season in the NFL,
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  one of the crazy things that happened, oof.
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  It's crazy just to think about that. But the fact that Ronnie Lott,
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  and again, if you can visualize it, and you already know how football is with the helmets,
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  and you got the face mask going on, and then sadly, hey, listen,
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  you don't want to grab a face mask. That's a 15-yard penalty.
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  Depending on how you twist that thing, you could get kicked out of the game.
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  But sadly, there are plays that got bad habits. I did an episode previously
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  in regards to bad habits, And Rodney Lott, his pinky, for some reason,
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  was trying to tackle the running back of the Dallas Cowboys.
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  For some reason, his pinky got stuck somewhere in his face mask, right?
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  If you're a football fan, you know what I'm talking about.
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  The face masks are little cages when you could just, you know,
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  put something there and something wrong is going to come out of there.
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  And my understanding is Rodney Lott was trying to make this tackle because that's
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  what he is. He was a tackling machine. He was just a machine off raw.
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  His tip of his pinky broke. And there was a bone coming out.
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  Yeah, yeah. People are going to be like, oh, my God, David Bailey,
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  come on. I did warn you. I'm just saying. I did warn you.
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  It's gruesome. But the fact that Ronnie Lott, once that he noticed that his
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  pinky was out of place, I'm like, he's looking at his finger like,
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  and I wish that I could, you know, there's videos out there.
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  You know y'all don't want the whole copyright thing going on but you know it's
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  pinky just cheek tip of you know bones come out,
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  Or the bone coming out. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm sorry.
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  So it looks like his finger just got kind of shredded in a sense.
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  That's one of the descriptions that people are like, where's his finger at? Where's his pinky at?
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  And naturally, when a football player, and this is in life, anytime that you
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  get hurt, when you break something, sadly, you're going to be out in the sideline.
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  If you're in the whatever field of professional, You know, it's going to be
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  a little bit difficult for you to go to work.
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  You know what I mean? You're going to be sidelined, as they say, just like in football.
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  Football plays, you know, get hurt. So they sideline. And this could take, you know, a surgery.
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  And this could take months. And keep a modestness. You know,
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  one would say, okay, we're going to do a surgery in the pinky.
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  But sadly, it's your whole hand. You have to recover. It's going to be swollen.
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  It's going to take tough.
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  Now, I don't know what they mean by Mitchell Robinson and his surgery in regards
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  to his pinky that he's going to be able to play.
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  I don't know. You know what I mean? But the fact is this.
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  Ronnie Lott, at that point, he was like 26, 27, somewhere around there.
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  He's a young man with his adrenaline, wanting to fight.
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  And again, I want people to just not just focus on the story.
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  I know I'm talking about the injury because the injury, it's what happened.
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  But Ronnie Lott, instead of saying, I need surgery, he's going to be out.
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  That means that the San Francisco 49ers are heading to the playoff,
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  because at this time they are a playoff.
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  Playoff? I don't want to talk about playoff. Playoffs.
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  See, playoffs matter, and playoffs matter to Ronnie Lott.
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  And it's not just matter to Ronnie Lott playing the playoff,
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  it matters because if you win, and you win, and you win, you get to the Super Bowl.
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  So he had this situation. He had it in a conundrum. Have you ever been in a
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  situation where you have to make one of the most hardest decisions of all time?
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  And here comes this young man who said, you know what? I'm going to sit out.
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  Went to the doctors. Supposedly spoke to some teammates.
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  But Ronnie Lott was already, in his mind, was already like, I already made my
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  decision. I want to play.
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  What are you going to do? You're going to put a big cat? So,
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  you know, he's going to be in pain. You're going to give him all these pain shots.
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  Sadly, you know, in sports, there's a lot of people.
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  And that's just in sports and in any place. But, you know, probably happened
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  in sports and wrestling when, you know, players get addicted to the painkillers
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  and they got probably a lot with the finger. I don't want to be a pain doctor.
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  That's why I don't want to do a surgery. Is there something else that I could do?
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  Imagine that conversation, imagine you're the doctor.
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  Well, Ronnie, I can tell you something, but I'm not suggesting it.
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  Ronnie probably like, come on, Doc.
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  You've been doing this forever. I'm over here on my third, fourth season in the NFL. I want to win.
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  Doctor goes and says, hey, Ronnie, you know what? I admire you.
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  Maybe I should talk to your coach. No, no, no, no, Doc. I'm here.
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  I'm here at the doctor. Come on, Doc. Talk to me. I want to play.
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  Tell me. What can we do?
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  Doctors looking at Ronnie Lottis like, oh, the only way that I could probably
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  not guarantee, but it's going to be a better alternative if you want to play,
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  then we got to kind of cut your pinky.
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  Ronnie Lottis probably looking at his pinky. And if Ronnie Lottis listening
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  to this beautiful podcast, he's probably looking at his pinky right about now.
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  I'm looking at my pinky as well.
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  Everybody's probably going to start looking at their fingers now.
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  And Ronnie Lott, number 42, the Hall of Famer, future Hall of Famer. At that time, he wasn't.
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  But one of the legends, five-time All-Pro, if I'm not mistaken.
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  So many intos, I don't know. I think like 60-something intos, 50, I don't know.
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  The dude was a legend, a legend. Ronnie Lott, a legend in the field of football.
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  In. In that instance, being young that he was, he made the ultimate decision.
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  You know what Ronnie Lott did? Ladies and gentlemen, my legendary people,
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  this is what makes Ronnie Lott one of the legends of this podcast.
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  This should be a deconstructed topic to all the fame now.
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  He decided to, yes, cut his pinky, right?
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  Now, I'm not going to say that he cut his own pinky. My understanding is that
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  it's part of the pinky, and they make that go. Ding!
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  Sealed it. The pain is gone. A little bit of pain, obviously,
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  but it was just on the little pinky and not on his, I believe it was the left
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  arm, if I'm not mistaken.
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  And boy, oh boy, that story, and when I heard that story, it is a story that
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  I would love to continue telling.
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  Because I'm going to say, wow, that was kind of silly.
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  But put yourself in the context of what this young man at that time was doing for not just the team,
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  not just for himself, but the fans of San Francisco 49ers that were going crazy in the 1980s.
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  Because he looked at his other players. He looked at Joe Montana.
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  Great plays to have. Joe Montana being the cornerstone of that team.
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  He said, you know, if Joe could do it with two bad knees, well,
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  it's a piece of the pinky.
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  And that's that story. The story of a commitment, the story of whatever it is,
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  and he just continued to play football. A legendary career.
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  Made it into the Hall of Fame.
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  And it was something that, you know, in interviews, they asked him,
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  you know, Hey, Bonnie, do you regret that, Ivani? Like, sir.
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  He always shows his pinky. I'm telling you. That's why I did not want to show
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  pictures of a pinky. Maybe I should.
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  You could always find out and Google that. He's always like this.
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  He's always pink. But it became something of a legendary story.
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  Because there's those athletes. And look, and I want to say.
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  And after he gets hurt. And we might question, well, it's the finals.
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  We've seen many sips. switch. I remember years ago, Carl Malone with the hand.
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  There's a lot of athletes that had to face certain decisions because it could
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  hurt them long term. And this is one of those things.
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  Whether he made the right decision, ultimately it became the right decision. Props to him.
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  Obviously, a pinky is different than a foot, than a whole hand.
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  That would have been crazy.
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  Chill. Relax there. But it just And at that time, I guess that's what football was all about.
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  Football was a little bit different in the 80s, just like sports.
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  But football was definitely different.
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  You know, players were getting paid a little bit more attention.
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  Revenues was coming a little bit more. So, hey, listen, it's not just about their livelihood.
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  Well, it was about their livelihood, you know, football.
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  But the fact that football was just the sport that they got you where you want to be at.
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  And it's just a legendary story that to this
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  day and i'm glad that it gonna take it
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  back i'm gonna say i'm glad hey michael robertson get better game
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  one june 3rd 2026 can't wait let's go new york still go new york but the fact
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  is you know little stories like that and i mentioned before my podcast in my
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  previous episode setting goals hitting the reset button reflecting life sheaf
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  whatever it is there's gonna be things that's gonna remind you of something.
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  I guess Mitch Robinson's story with the pink, it kind of reminds me of the Ronnie Lodge story.
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  That's a beautiful story because we don't necessarily just have to think about
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  something physical and the aspect of that.
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  But in life, we have made decisions that we don't know is the right,
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  but we make the decision.
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  It's going to affect us. But you see what's behind that decision is that commitment.
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  When you believe in yourself, when you believe in others, when you believe in
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  your team, when you believe in everybody, your coach, your mentor,
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  your fans, everybody. When you believe, you have that commitment,
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  then it makes certain decisions like this one a little bit easier.
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  Keep in mind, don't go crazy cutting something to be like, no,
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  no, no, I can do it. That was Ronnie Lott.
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  We all are not Ronnie Lott. But we do tend to want to be inspired by stories like this.
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  So there's the Deco Shulkin Topic Podcast. You already know. Look at this.
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  Ronnie Lai, he looks like a scary dude. You know, this little picture going on here.
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  But that's the fact that he's a legendary. That's a Giants fan.
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  You got to respect this gentleman here.
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  I do remember a story or two, Mark Barabas. But that's in a whole different sense.
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  Once again, ladies and gentlemen, and everybody in between, whatever the case
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  might be, hit the like, hit the like always.
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  It's always going to help me to tell these stories, to bring it to you, to bring it to the world.
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  Once again, just going to remind people, we don't necessarily have to be Ronnie
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  Lack, but we could always feel inspired by these stories.
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  We're making it happen. I'm out of here. Peace. Take care.