I was very fortunate as a kid growing up in the late 80’s to see a number of games that Tommy John pitched. By then he had reached his mid 40’s, and I remember how grandfatherly he looked. One of my fondness baseball memories involved John way back on July 27, 1988 when he committed 3 errors on ONE play against the Brewers. I was only 12 years old at the time but I’ll never forget that moment while watching the game on WPIX, listening to the announcers (I think it was Scooter and White) go on and on about that play. They couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Neither could I, in fact.
Here is how it played out:
In the fourth inning against the Brewers, John muffed a ground ball for one error and threw wildly past first base for a second. Then, inexplicably, he intercepted the throw home from right field and threw wildly past the catcher. — from BaseballLibrary.com
In case your interested, three errors on one play is a MLB record held by 3 other pitchers, Cy Seymour (1896 NY NL), Jaime Navarro (1996 Chi NL) and Mike Sirotka (1999 Chi AL).
Anyway, what John is really known for is the elbow surgery that bares his name. Yesterday, The Boston Globe published a great article on how John came back from that surgical procedure:
Today, the success rate for Tommy John surgery is about 85 percent, with pitchers following a rehabilitation timeline not all that different from the one John used during 1975. John believes successful recovery from the surgery depends upon pitchers giving their arms proper time to heal. But when John began his rehab, the proper recovery time was unknown. Once again, he found himself in uncharted medical territory.
For several months after the surgery, John, Jobe, and other members of the Dodgers medical staff used trial and error to guide the rehab. John spent two weeks in a cast, then 14 weeks in various splints where he was allowed to test the arm within a limited range of motion. As soon as he was splint-free, John started throwing.
“We just winged it,” said John. “It was, ‘Let’s do biceps. Let’s do triceps. Let’s do forearms.’ We would introduce different muscle groups every week. There was never pain, just soreness.”
What an amazing story. Off the top of my head I can think of a few guys in the Yankee system right know who have had the surgery - Humberto Sanchez, Andrew Brackman and Alan Horne. Let’s hope they get to experience some of the same success John had during his career after his surgery .