Gary Dell’Abate Sustains a Lip Injury During a Friendly Game of Pickleball

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Moments after getting critiqued for spending downtime in Los Angeles with Jon Hein visiting “The Brady Bunch” house and watching “Survivor” with host Jeff Probst, on Wednesday executive producer Gary Dell’Abate revealed a recent injury he was certain Howard would be irked by.

“Gary’s got something weird going on with his lips,” Howard observed.

“I have five stitches inside my lip,” Gary confirmed. “This is going to annoy you because it’s something I was doing in my free time … I fell while playing pickleball.”

After a brief explanation of the sport being similar to tennis, Gary gave the grim details of his injury, which happened over the weekend while spending time with his in-laws out on Long Island.

“I went to go get the ball … I guess I’m getting older … I went to scoop down and I tripped … and I fell right on my face and I bit my lip,” Gary reported.

“Oooh,” a horrified Howard and Robin said in unison.

The gory details didn’t end there. “It was one of those things where it was bleeding and I was like it’s not that bad,” Gary said. “I walked to the car and looked in the rearview mirror and there was a literal hole inside of my lip, I bit a whole chunk out.”

“You must have been in a lot of pain,” a sympathetic Howard said.

“It still hurts,” Gary admitted.

Injury notwithstanding, the staffer has not soured on pickleball. “I’ve been playing for a while, I love it,” Gary confessed.

“Never heard of it,” Howard admitted.

“Fastest growing sport in the United States,” Gary championed.

“I love you but you’re into some weird shit,” Howard said before putting an end to the injury report.