Today's word is: Health

What it means: The Thunder had their fair share of injuries and ailments in 2011, but two stood out: Austin Romine's concussion and manager Tony Franklin's brief hospitalization.

First, Romine's concussion. Before the season, Major League Baseball introduced a new 7-day disabled list for concussions, which signaled the sport's increased level of concern with the injury.

In June, Romine, in his second season as the Thunder's backstop, was plowed over by Altoona designated hitter Travis Scott. He missed three days before the team placed him on the disabled list.

Romine, as directed by the team, kept the injury -- and his symptoms -- quiet.

He eventually returned and in September was summoned to the majors. While at Yankee Stadium in September, he felt that, because enough time had passed, he was free to talk about what he was actually feeling while he was sitting on the DL with his first concussion.

Here's what he said.

"It was a little bit worse than maybe I’d let on, but I’d never had a concussion so I didn’t know what to expect. I was telling you guys the truth every single day. You know that I’m not one to lie. I tell it how it is, I hope I have that track record over the past two years when I was in Trenton.

Yeah, it was a little bit more (severe). I was dizzy for a while, but I just had a lot of trust in Tim Lentych. He’s a very good man, he got me back playing many times through injuries over there through my time in Trenton, so we devised a plan and it ended up working out and I came back when we thought I would."

As for Franklin, the situation was a bit more bizarre. 

On May 12, after meeting with the media, filling out the lineup card and doing all of his other managerial duties, the Thunder skipper complained of chest pains and was taken to a local hospital, where it was determined he did not have a heart attack. 

Neither the team nor Franklin revealed additional details (though it was speculated that the problems stemmed from a super hot "ghost wing" he had eaten earlier), and he returned in about a week's time. 

It was easily the strangest injury I've seen in five years on the beat.