Stephen Drew's concussion is not gone

I know we were all excited yesterday because Stephen Drew was cleared to resume baseball activities after sustaining a concussion over two weeks ago, but now we have some bad news for you.

Stephen Drew still dealing with "slight fogginess. ... There's times it goes away, and then it shows back up again."

— Brian MacPherson (@brianmacp) March 22, 2013

That's the thing with concussions. Symptoms can vanish, but they can also reappear. Basically, you can feel fine without actually being fine. While taking the MLB-approved tests for concussions, he apparently felt fine. While the timing of his feeling good worked out for him in Pittsburgh under the eyes of a concussion specialist, it wasn't telling about his actual condition.

Concussions are tricky, and Drew seems to still be suffering from his. He was likely to begin the year on the disabled list anyway, but his fogginess will push him back that much further, and he'll likely have to go through the MLB tests once more to see if he's actually able to return to activities and games.

So, the Red Sox are back where they were early on Thursday: Jose Iglesias will be the starting shortstop on Opening Day, and possibly for a while after that. It all depends on when Drew feels 100 percent and can resume his spring activities.

*****

As an aside, thank you, Over the Monster readers, for understanding that a concussion is serious, and not just something you rub dirt on, man up and play through, or some other bullshit that I expect to see from clueless football fans (read: not all football fans) that somehow remain unaware of the damage caused to players. Twitter users have not been as understanding and aware as you, and have gone as far as to basically rewrite Stephen Drew's injury history -- essentially his fractured ankle that understandably had him out for part of two seasons -- and blame his concussion (and inability to recover from it on their schedule) on his last name. Cute, right?