Who was Tommy John?
If your name is forever attached to a medical procedure, you know it’s a big deal.
Twelve-year veteran starter Tommy John at age 31 was a dependable innings-eater in his third season with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1974, a team en route to 102 wins and an NL pennant. With a crisp 13-3 mark and 2.59 ERA, John was on the mound July 17 against Montreal when his elbow kind of exploded during a pitch. He told MLB.com last year the experience was “as if my body continued to go forward and my left arm had just flown out to right field, independent of the rest of me.”
Dodger team surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe eventually tried a new tactic as he put John under the knife for what he thought would be a repair of the ulnar collateral ligament — connective tissue between the upper arm and forearm.
John had none. Jobe borrowed a ligament from John’s right wrist (not his pitching arm) to replace the missing ligament. It hadn’t been done before, but he wasn’t pitching again without trying it.
Tommy John went 10-10 in 1976, his first year back, then averaged 20 wins a year from 1977-80 en route to 288 career wins before retiring
— at age 46. The procedure is now universally referred to as “Tommy John surgery.”
MLB.com says more than 500 players — most of them pitchers — have undergone the surgery since, although Hall of Fame DH Paul Molitor had the procedure. Red Sox ace Chris Sale’s 2020 season — which ended before it began with the surgery — is one of the latest to stake his career on the medical operation.
A look at how some other “Tommy John surgery” patients have fared:
John Smoltz — One of the game’s best starters for the Atlanta Braves in the 1990s won a Cy Young Award in 1996, but got hurt in 1999 in his 12th big-league season.
He’d never had a relief appearance but worked out of the bullpen some upon his return to the game in 2001, when he was slowly brought back and pitched only 59 innings. He led the majors with 55 saves in 2002 and had 45 more a year later with a microscopic 1.12 ERA, and 44 saves in 2004. Back as a starter in 2005, he took the hill 100 times over the next three years.
Chris Carpenter — An average starter in Toronto, Carpenter’s career took flight with a move to St. Louis, going 51-18 from 2004-06 and winning the NL Cy Young in 2005. Hurt early in 2007, he missed most of that season and the next before fully coming back, going 33-11 in 200910.
Matt Harvey — A promising star with the Mets with a glittering age 24, 2.27-ERA season in 2013, Harvey underwent the surgery an appeared fully recovered in 2015, going 13-8 with a 2.71 ERA. But since then, he’s gone 26-40.
Tom Gordon — With one of the game’s most unhittable curveballs, “Flash” finally found his niche as a closer for the 1998 Red Sox, posting 46 saves. Hurt early in 1999, he never started another game over his final 11 years in the game and outside of a 34-save season for the 2006 Phillies was never quite the same guy.