Tenorio: Celtics commit flagrant foul by allowing Perkins to play tonight

Win or lose tonight, the Boston Celtics are committing a “flagrant foul” by allowing center Kendrick Perkins to play in Game Five against the Orlando Magic at TD BankNorth Garden.Perkins strained his left shoulder with just under five minutes left in Sunday’s 95-94 Game Four win over the Magic. While the injury was serious enough to make him temporarily leave the game, he refused to undergo a magnetic resonance imaging exam afterward. In a published report, he said, “It’s the playoffs and the tissues don’t have time to heal ? If I take the MRI and they find something, I may be out.”Maybe this is what health-care providers had in mind when they told President Obama that one way to cut costs was through “aggressive efforts” to “curtail unnecessary tests and procedures,” as the New York Times reported. But both Perkins and the Celtics organization have made the wrong call on this – Perkins for turning down an MRI, and the Celtics for allowing him to do so. And it shows how the idea of “playing hurt” has become a hidden plague in professional sports.We know the stories of the athletes who overcame injuries to not only play in games, but play pivotal roles in them – Willis Reed shrugging off his hurt thigh to lead the New York Knicks over the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1970 NBA Finals ? the LA Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson, achy hamstring, knees and all, stepping up to the plate to take Dennis Eckersley downtown in the 1988 World Series ? and of course our own Curt Schilling and his bloody sock in 2004, and Zdeno Chara and his bloody skate Sunday night.But “playing hurt” has apparently become so taken for granted that players who get hurt have veto power over whether or not their injuries get medically evaluated, while their cold corporate owners green-light this policy and show they’re more concerned with wins and losses than the health of their employees. The media is too willing to go along with this, using vague phrases like “left shoulder strain” instead of telling what really happened – “colliding with 6-11, 265-pound Dwight Howard” – and asking whether, if Perk sounds concerned that the MASH unit in Waltham might find something serious enough to put him beside Kevin Garnett on the bench, maybe his injury warrants an MRI.What Perkins’ injury also shows is that when it comes to pro sports, our priorities are skewed. For the past few months, we’ve ranted and raved about professional athletes (A-Rod, Manny Ramirez) injecting banned substances into their bodies, and about the need for players to undergo drug tests. But we’ve grown too vocal in calling for drug tests for suspected substances and not vocal enough in calling for medical tests for actual injuries.So when Perk takes the court tonight against the Magic, we should wish him well, but we should also remember that he’s jeopardizing his health, and that the organization that signs his checks has allowed him to do so. The Celtics should have gone with a lineup of Big Baby and four guards tonight, rather than ignoring safeguards against further injury.Rich Tenorio is an Item sports copy editor.