10 Most Valiant Individual Comebacks in Boston Sports This Century

Out of Major League action since June 16 with a right shoulder injury, Jed Lowrie is expected to rejoin the Boston Red Sox this week and try once again to demonstrate his resilience and help bring long-awaited stability to the shortstop position at Fenway Park.

Prior to his most recent health setback, Lowrie’s 2010 debut was delayed for two and a half months by a bout of mononucleosis. Upon recovery, he managed to put in 55 appearances for the Sox last season and charge up a respectable .287 batting average. Leading up to his shoulder ailment, he had played an identical 55 games earlier this season with a .270 success rate at the plate.

Time will tell as to the extent and quickness of Lowrie’s resilience. But while we wait on that, here is a look at 10 other Boston athletes who have recently surmounted at least one significant injury or illness and have since returned and made an impact on their game.

10. Tom Brady

In the first quarter of the 2008 regular season, Brady’s role in New England’s attempt to bounce back from the bitter ending to a near-perfect 2007 campaign was knocked out of the question. The reigning NFL MVP sustained a season-ending knee injury on a tackle by Kansas City’s Bernard Pollard.

Brady returned the following autumn after a protracted road back from surgery, although his 2009 season was not nearly as sparkling as most of its predecessors.

But since then, he nabbed his second MVP accolade in 2010 after throwing 36 touchdown passes, the most since his 50 scoring tosses in 2007. He also had a career-low four interceptions on the year. He  boosted his quarterback rating to triple digits and above 110 for only the second time in his career.

9. Wes Welker

If there is ever a good time to go down with an ailment, it would be at the tail end of a season, as was the case for Welker in January 2010. Nonetheless, the Patriots’ wide receiver defied expectations through his offseason recovery and missed only one game this past season.

All things considered, Welker exceeded expectations in 2010, leading the Pats with 86 catches and 848 yards gained. By season’s end, he had garnered his third consecutive Pro Bowl selection.

8. Phil Kessel

While he may now be the object of derision for being the sacrifice in a September 2009 trade that seems to be paying dividends for the Bruins, Kessel penned a story during his rookie year that need not be forgotten.

Just two months and 27 games into his NHL career, the much-hyped No. 5 draft choice put everything aside when he announced he would be undergoing surgery for testicular cancer. Some speculated the illness would put him out of action for the remainder of the 2006-07 season.

As it happened, Kessel missed merely one month of action in Boston. Just 25 days after surgery, he commenced a three-day, three-game rehab stint with Providence and then suited up for the parent club against Ottawa on Jan. 9, 2007.

From there, he played another 42 games, established himself as a clutch scorer in the shootout and capped his rookie year with the Masterton Trophy.

7. Taylor Twellman

The Revolution’s all-time goal-getter turned out to be the local soccer equivalent of a Bobby Orr or a Cam Neely, as his celestial MLS career was cut short after nine seasons due to repeated injuries.

Before his 2010 retirement, Twellman had helped the Revs to four MLS Cup Final appearances, while racking up 101 career goals. In the midst of saturating his scoring portfolio, he also sustained a toe-curling seven concussions, the worst of which occurred during a 2008 game versus the LA Galaxy. He only mustered two more games-played in two years afterward despite a rigid resolve to come back.

But the fact that Twellman accomplished all that he did beforehand is all the more astonishing given that his recurring head ailments began as early as 2003, when he sustained a Grade II concussion. Two years after that setback, he won the MLS MVP award.

6. Jacoby Ellsbury

A series of rib fractures and two recurrences of that injury stemming from a collision with third baseman Adrian Beltre ultimately confined the Red Sox leadoff hitter and kleptomaniac baserunner to 18 games in 2010. In what would have been his third full season as a Major Leaguer, Ellsbury was approaching the not-so-unripe age of 27, which, combined with the injury, instilled doubts as to his future impact on the field.

Fast forward to this season, and the phrase “career year” is an insulting understatement for Ellsbury.

He has already slugged more home runs (19) this year than he did in 2008 and 2009 combined. He has already set himself a new high in the way of RBI and extra-base hits. And by season’s end, he should easily surpass his previous career high of 188 hits and 98 runs scored.

5. Tim Thomas

On the heels of a high-grossing contract extension, a Vezina Trophy and participation in the Olympics, the grizzled Bruins’ goalie lost his starting job to Tuukka Rask in 2009-10. He entered the offseason preparing for hip surgery and pondering his future with Boston—or lack thereof.

Yet, on the other side of his injury, Thomas instantaneously restored his 2008-09 form and then some. In the regular season, he went 35-11-9 with nine shutouts and an even 2.00 GAA. He set an NHL record with a .938 save percentage en route to a second Vezina.

He followed up on that in the playoffs with a .940 save percentage, 1.98 GAA and four shutouts, including a 4-0 blanking of Vancouver in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

4. Jon Lester

Less than three months removed from his Major League debut, already with a 7-2 record to his credit and on the heels of general manager Theo Epstein adamantly withholding him at the trading deadline, Lester was diagnosed with lymphoma in August 2006.

Taking the remainder of the season and subsequent offseason to undergo and recover from treatment, Lester made a cumulative 18 rehab starts at three minor-league levels in 2007. He then returned to the show with a six-inning, six-strikeout winning decision on July 23 in Cleveland and proceeded to win all four of his decisions in the home stretch, as the Red Sox won the American League East.

After receiving two no-decisions in the ALCS, Lester took the ball for Game 4 of the World Series and was credited for the title-clinching win over Colorado. He followed that up the next year (his first full season as a Major Leaguer) with a no-hitter against the visiting Royals.

3. Patrice Bergeron

When Bergeron went down on a hit by then-Flyer Randy Jones in October 2007, Bruins broadcasters Dave Goucher and Bob Beers were among the first to openly evoke grim memories of Travis Roy.

Luckily, the comparisons soon subsided when Bergeron’s injury proved less severe than initially feared. Nonetheless, it was nearly a full year before one of New England hockey’s more beloved contemporary figures returned to playing shape and still longer before his old game was stabilized.

But over the last year-plus, Bergeron has scraped piles upon piles of ice chips over his painful past. He led an offensively deprived Bruins team with 52 points in 2009-10 and logged 22 goals and 35 points in 80 games this past year.

Most recently, his eight-year portfolio with the Black and Gold peaked (for now) in the form of a two-goal game to clinch the 2011 Stanley Cup.

2. Mark Herzlich

Shortly after finishing his junior year at Boston College in May 2009, Herzlich, a prospective NFL draftee, made headlines for all the wrong reasons when he learned he had bone cancer. Although his battle to beat the disease ended successfully in an impressive span of five months, his football career was on hold and up in the air.

Yet Herzlich took everything in stride and spent nearly all of the next full year rehabilitating. By the autumn of 2010, the linebacker returned to action for his belated senior season and was one of the top performers for the Eagles in most every defensive category.

Since then, Herzlich has consumed an overwhelming assortment of accolades for his courage and persistence. And this past spring, he was rewarded for his sheer performances on the field when the NFL’s New York Giants signed him as a free agent.

1. Tedy Bruschi

Less than two weeks after helping the Patriots to their third Super Bowl title in four years, the veteran linebacker suffered a stroke with a series of secondary effects that were expected to sideline him for the subsequent season.

At the time, it was amazing that Bruschi only spent two full days in the hospital before he was discharged and began to rehabilitate. He continued to replenish his old form ahead of schedule, to the point where he saw action against Buffalo on Oct. 30, 2005—less than nine months after his offseason scare.

Bruschi went on to play three more seasons before calling it a career after 13 total seasons, five Super Bowl appearances and three titles—all with New England. He missed only four games in his final three years and played in all 16 of the Patriots’ victories during their historic 2007 regular season.