When one thinks of the injuries sustained by baseball players, skin irritation is not necessarily the malady that jumps to mind. But for Josh Beckett, ace pitcher of the Boston Red Sox, it is exactly those sorts of concerns that have proven most debilitating over the years: Beckett has suffered from blisters on the fingers of his pitching hand that have landed him on the disabled list an astonishing six times since 2000.

That is a painful problem. It is an expensive problem. And it is a problem that can curtail seasons; it can derail careers; it can mean the difference between playing and not playing, winning and losing.