The comeback was supposed to have happened months ago.

By now, the Dodgers once hoped, Blake Treinen’s return would be old news.

Entering spring training, the shoulder injuries that sidelined Treinen much of the past two years finally seemed fixed. And even at 35 years old, the veteran reliever still flashed electric stuff seemingly capable of late-game dominance.

Then, in one unfortunate, unavoidable stroke, Treinen’s patience was tested anew. After suffering two fractured ribs in a spring training game, his return to the mound was delayed all over again.

On March 9, a line-drive comebacker drilled Treinen in the right side of his rib cage. He lost his breath and crumbled in pain. Initial medical scans showed an internal bruise, with bleeding in his lung. Then doctors subsequently diagnosed the pair of rib fractures, forcing Treinen to remain on the injured list until the club’s homestand this past week.

“It was a long road,” manager Dave Roberts said, “in the sense of … feeling like you’re making some headway, and then to have to regress.”

“Just one of those weird things you can’t explain,” Treinen added of his unforeseen detour. “You can get caught up in every little frustration.”

Now, however, with Treinen back at full health and finally on the active roster, the timing of his return feels somewhat serendipitous.

At the moment the Dodgers needed him most — amid a wave of other reliever injuries to Evan Phillips (hamstring), Brusdar Graterol (shoulder), Ryan Braiser (calf), Joe Kelly (shoulder) and Connor Brogdon (plantar fasciitis) — Treinen is being thrust back into the high-leverage situations he has long enjoyed best.

“Blake could close the game out today,” Roberts quipped ahead of Treinen’s season debut last Sunday.

Close. Treinen pitched a clean eighth inning with a three-run lead that day, then repeated the task the very next evening, registering a pair of late-game holds in his first major league action since the 2022 playoffs.

“Really good,” Roberts said of Treinen, who retired all six batters he faced with a pair of strikeouts. “Anyone coming back from injury, you want to make sure you’re still able to compete at a high level, the level you expect to compete at. And he does a back-to-back. [Looked] very efficient. The stuff was teethy. He’s doing well.”

Treinen’s outlook seemed different a couple months ago, when the line drive cracked his ribs.

Up to that point, the right-hander had looked sharp in spring camp. The shoulder injuries that limited him to five appearances in 2022, and that then required surgical repairs of his labrum and rotator cuff that cost him all of 2023, were finally healed. Back at long last were his mid-90s mph fastball velocity and sweeping wipeout slider, the same pitches that keyed the former All-Star’s career resurgence with the Dodgers in 2021, when he posted a 1.99 ERA in 72 outings.

“His stuff is in a great place right now,” general manager Brandon Gomes said in March. “There are a lot of outcomes where he’s an elite pitcher, whether it’s the 2021 form or not.”

Then the comebacker threw an unexpected wrench into his recovery process — causing a new injury that took time to be accurately diagnosed.

In the days after getting hit, Treinen thought he had avoided anything serious. An X-ray and CT scan initially only showed bruising of his lung, an ailment that sounds bad but can be relatively minor. A successful bullpen session in the final days of camp kept him on track to pitch in South Korea, where Treinen accompanied the team for its international season-opening series.

“It was sore, but not painful,” Treinen said of his ribs at the time of the trip. “I was like, ‘I’m in a great place to either help in Korea or help on opening day.’”

Instead, upon arriving in Seoul, the pain in Treinen’s side only worsened.

The pitcher started to feel “locked up,” unable to get loose or throw with full intensity. He was quickly ruled out of the Korea games and scheduled for an MRI exam when the team returned home — one that ended up revealing fractures in the Nos. 5 and 6 ribs.

“It was frustrating,” Treinen said. “You don’t want to be on that roster, take a spot from somebody else. But I genuinely thought I was gonna be fine. I think we all did.”

“It’s really hard for my personality,” he added, “trying not to live that roller-coaster.”

Indeed, it was only the latest setback in Treinen’s path back to full health.

After initially getting hurt in April 2022, Treinen returned for four outings at the end of that season, including a postseason appearance in which he gave up a home run, before undergoing shoulder surgery at the end of that season.

After some early hope last season of a return in 2023, Treinen’s recovery again was pushed back to 2024, after a brief minor-league rehab stint was ended in August.

“I tried hard not to let my mind get there [with the frustration of the injuries],” said Treinen, who also faced potential free agency last winter with the Dodgers holding a club option in his contract.

“God’s got a plan, though,” Treinen added. “As you move along [through your career], you don’t ride the wave as long. You just relax and let things be as they will. If God wants me to play baseball, I’ll keep playing baseball and doors will continue to open. If I’m supposed to move on, then doors will close.”

In the end, the Dodgers kept Treinen’s door open, making the relatively easy decision to pick up his $1-million salary.

And now, they are happy to see him finally walking back through it, returning to health — and, they hope, form — at a time when their bullpen’s depth was in dire, desperate straits.

“I wasn’t really too concerned about the stuff,” Roberts said of Treinen, who along with Daniel Hudson, Alex Vesia and Michael Grove make up the back end of the Dodgers’ current bullpen orientation.

“For me, it was hoping he could trust his stuff, whatever he had, in the strike zone; betting on the stuff to play and get major league hitters out,” Roberts added. “And that’s what I’m seeing.”

Ric Flair went viral earlier this week as a video of a verbal confrontation he was in at a Gainesville, Florida, restaurant surfaced online.

The WWE legend was at Piesanos Stone Fired Pizza last week when he was “Disrespected More Than I Ever Have In My Entire Life,” per a post on X.

Flair was heard using expletives and asking a bartender to take their discussion into the parking lot.

The 75-year-old wrote on X that the incident began “Because Of An Issue I Had With The Kitchen Manager Taking Too Long In The Bathroom.”

Flair addressed the argument on the “MJ Morning Show” in Tampa.

“It just escalated, and I was wrong for getting mad, but I kind of felt like I was defending my position,” Flair said. “I was wrong for losing my temper. When I feel like I’m put in that area where I’m uncomfortable and all of a sudden everything just fell apart, I got upset.”

“I was wrong for getting upset. I probably just should have just walked out the door, but it caught me so off-guard because we were having a wonderful time,” he added. “Then all of a sudden… someone in their kitchen said I did something wrong in the bathroom and there’s no one there except me and him.”

Nashville Deputy Mayor Brenda Haywood and American wrestler Ric Flair attend a press conference where July 31 is declared “Ric Flair Day” in Music City at Nashville Fairgrounds on June 23, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

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Flair denied being drunk, although he admitted he had Michelob Ultra and “probably” two mixed drinks.

The video begins with Flair and a bartender in an argument, and Flair saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong except spend money and put this place over and bring my family and friends here. That is bad for you.”

The bartender asked why that would be the case, to which Flair said to “watch social media tomorrow,” seemingly hinting at his future post.

The bartender told Flair his name was Nicholas, to which Flair replied, “Nicholas D—head.”

The two then discussed an interaction Flair had near the bathroom. Flair said on social media that the argument started “Because Of An Issue I Had With The Kitchen Manager Taking Too Long In The Bathroom.”

Flair then offered a female bartender a $1,000 tip “just to say to him ‘kiss my a–.’”

Ric Flair attends the 44th Annual Sports Emmy Awards at Frederick P. Rose Hall Jazz at Lincoln Center on May 22, 2023 in New York City. (Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)

Nicholas said he “cut off” Flair at the bar and did not ask him to leave like Flair claimed. 

Flair then asked the bartender to take the discussion to the parking lot, which he declined as he was “on the clock.” Flair then replied, “You’re on the p—- clock.” Another patron at the bar said he would take it outside, as he was not an employee, and he did not “give a s—.” That’s when a female bartender asked that man to “please stop.”

Flair posted on social media pleading to his followers to “never visit” Piesanos, although he said he had food from there delivered via Uber Eats shortly after the altercation anyway.

Flair has battled health and alcohol issues over the years.

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Sasha Jane Lowerson just wanted to surf.

But when the Australian longboard surfer attempted to enter an upcoming competition in Huntington Beach, the athlete, who was born intersex, learned that the organizer wasn’t going to allow transgender athletes.

Instead, surfers would be required to enter the category of the gender they were assigned at birth, the organizer said in a video posted to Instagram last month.

The video received over 4,000 likes and more than 1,000 comments from people both supporting and arguing against the move. This week, it prompted the California Coastal Commission to intervene in what equity advocates say is an issue of access to the state’s coastline and an ongoing problem of discrimination against transgender athletes.

“As I walk my journey through the turmoil and the implications of people that want to spread misinformation, I’ve found myself wondering why?” Lowerson wrote in a post on Instagram in response to the situation. “Just why [do] people hate me for existing?”

The fight playing out in Huntington Beach is part of a larger discussion over the rights of transgender individuals across the country, particularly those in professional sports.

Former President Trump has said he plans to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports if he again wins the White House in November. Though the city of Huntington Beach is not part of the fight, some LGBTQ+ activists have expressed concern after the actions of a new, conservative City Council — which, among other things, banned Pride flags from being flown at city properties.

Advocates such as surf equity activist Sabrina Brennan say a ban has nothing to do with athleticism or competition.

“It’s a Republican and religious agenda that’s playing out and, frankly, harming people,” Brennan said. “The entire LGBTQ community is being negatively impacted. There’s a lot of damage happening.”

Sabrina Brennan of the group Surf Equity says the Huntington Beach event’s attempt to bar transgender contestants has nothing to do with athleticism or competition. “It’s a Republican and religious agenda that’s playing out,” she said.

(Melina Mara / Getty Images)

Lowerson did not respond to Times requests for comment. However, she told the Inertia that before she entered the Huntington Beach Longboard Pro contest, scheduled for Saturday, she reached out to organizer Todd Messick to make sure a spot was available for her. She didn’t hear back, but saw his video post calling for more entrants in the women’s division, so she entered, she told the outlet.

In his Instagram video on April 25, Messick addressed Lowerson’s entry, saying that his policy was to “support biological males and biological females in their divisions, respectively.” The policy, he said, complied with the standards of the sport’s governing body, the International Surfing Assn.

“You guys can live however and whatever you want to do in life. It’s not for me to decide,” he said in the video. “But it is for me to decide what’s fair and not fair for the American Longboard Assn. That being said, we’re going to stick to our guns. I want to offer an equal playing field for all athletes.”

Messick did not respond to a call seeking comment on Thursday.

The video quickly caught Brennan’s attention, and she contacted the California Coastal Commission.

Fans watch the U.S. Open of Surfing challenger series in Huntington Beach in 2023.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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International Surfing Assn. policy, which was updated last year, states that a transgender woman may participate in a women’s event if she provides a written declaration saying she identifies as a woman and tells the organization’s medical commission that her testosterone level has been below a certain concentration in the last 12 months. Lowerson wrote online that she meets all requirements for her to compete in the women’s category.

“I think discrimination on public property, on public lands, is completely unacceptable,” Brennan said. “To do this in a surf competition is absolutely not right. The ocean belongs to all of us.”

Brennan, who runs Surf Equity, which aims to improve access, equity and justice in pro surfing, said forcing a transgender athlete to “compete in a gender category that they don’t identify with is just really wrong.”

It’s also not in compliance with current policy, she said.

California Coastal Commission staff wrote in a letter Tuesday to Messick that if he wants to host the event, he will have to allow transgender athletes to participate. Banning those individuals violates the Coastal Act, a landmark law that declared the beach as a public treasure to be shared by everyone, according to the letter.

“Prohibiting or unfairly limiting transgender athletes from competing in this or any surf competition that takes place in the coastal waters of California does not meet the requirements of the public access policies of the Coastal Act and impedes access by discriminating against transgender surfers,” Coastal Commission Executive Director Kate Huckelbridge wrote.

The letter was written to formalize a conversation staff had with Messick in which he agreed to allow transgender participants in the contest, according to the document.

Lowerson said in an interview with the Inertia that she entered the Huntington Beach contest to have fun. But now she’s decided not to participate.

This is the American Longboard Assn.’s second year hosting the competition in Huntington Beach.

Brennan and others have long fought to make surfing — traditionally a male-dominated sport — more inclusive in California. And this isn’t the first time the California Coastal Commission has stepped in.

In 2016, the commission required the Titans of Mavericks, a famous big-wave contest near Half Moon Bay, to have a heat for women if it wanted a permit. For decades, the contest had invited only men.

In 2018, the State Lands Commission indicated it would lease the public beach for Mavericks only if women and men were awarded the same prize money. Historically, women have been paid less than male surfers participating in the same contests. Commission staff wrote in a report at the time that “the waves do not discriminate.”

Sawyer Lindblad placed first in the finals of the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach in 2023.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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Lowerson has long been a public figure in the surfing world. In March 2022, she placed ninth in the Noosa Festival of Surfing and was the first transgender woman to compete at the professional level. She also placed first in the Open Women’s and Women’s Logger divisions at the Western Australian State Titles that year.

Despite the gains made by transgender athletes, there have been persistent detractors. Sportswear company Rip Curl faced backlash this year after it featured Lowerson in an Instagram post as part of the company’s “Meet the Local Heroes of Western Australia” campaign. The comments eventually prompted the company to remove the post, according to published reports.

“I just want to be me, and I want to be included,” Lowerson told the Australian Broadcasting Co. in 2022.

Lowerson’s name did not appear on a list of individuals participating in the women’s division of the Huntington Beach Longboard Pro competition published Thursday. The roster had two spots left.