From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Tommy John, 83, died at his Florida home after entering hospice, leaving a significant baseball legacy.
- Left-hander won 288 games across 26 seasons, four-time All Star, 700 starts, 2,245 strikeouts and 3.34 ERA.
- After signing with the New York Yankees, he posted 21 and 22-win seasons and helped the team reach the 1981 World Series.
- While with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a 1974 UCL tear led to experimental surgery by Dr. Frank Jobe, using a tendon graft.
- The procedure became known as Tommy John surgery, yielding 164 post-op wins and forever changing pitcher injury treatment and career longevity.
Baseball lost a man whose name will be spoken for as long as pitchers take the mound.
Tommy John, the four time All Star left hander who won 288 games during a remarkable 26 year Major League career and became permanently connected to one of the most important medical advancements in sports history, died Saturday night at his Florida home. He was 83 and had recently entered hospice care.
John’s passing came just days after the former Yankees pitcher shared an emotional farewell with the baseball community through the organization.
“I want to thank the Yankees organization & the Steinbrenner family for giving me this opportunity to say goodbye to everyone,” John wrote, also thanking the friends, teammates and fans who followed him throughout his career.
But before Tommy John became the name of an operation, Tommy John was one hell of a pitcher.
The Terre Haute, Indiana native pitched from 1963 through 1989 for Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, California Angels and Oakland Athletics. He finished 288 231 with a 3.34 ERA, 2,245 strikeouts and 700 starts while pitching 4,710 1/3 innings. John made four All Star teams, posted three 20 win seasons and won at least 10 games in 17 different seasons.
His years in pinstripes remain a significant part of that résumé.
After signing with the Yankees before the 1979 season, John immediately went 21 9 with a 2.96 ERA. He followed with a career high 22 victories in 1980, earning an All Star selection and finishing fourth in American League Cy Young Award voting. Across two stints in the Bronx, John won 91 games and helped the Yankees reach the 1981 World Series. He was outstanding in that Fall Classic, allowing just one earned run across 13 innings against his former Dodgers club.
Yet the defining chapter of John’s career began seven years before he arrived in New York.
While pitching for the Dodgers in 1974, John severely damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. At the time, that type of injury was essentially considered career ending for a Major League pitcher.
Dodgers team physician Dr. Frank Jobe offered John an experimental alternative. Jobe reconstructed the damaged UCL using a tendon from John’s right wrist, performing a procedure that had never successfully returned a Major League pitcher to competition.
The odds weren’t exactly encouraging.
John underwent the operation in September 1974, missed the entire 1975 season and endured a rehabilitation process without any established blueprint. Then, in 1976, he returned to a Major League mound.
What happened next changed baseball forever.
John didn’t simply return. He became even more successful.
He won 20 games for the Dodgers in 1977, going 20 7 with a 2.78 ERA and helping Los Angeles reach the World Series. Remarkably, John pitched another 14 seasons after the operation and remained in the Majors until he was 46 years old.
Of his 288 career victories, 164 came after the surgery, compared with 124 beforehand. All three of his 20 win seasons came after the procedure.
The operation eventually became universally known as Tommy John surgery.
UCL reconstruction has since become one of the most familiar procedures in baseball, extending the careers of generations of pitchers who once would have faced the same grim prognosis John received in 1974. His willingness to undergo an experimental surgery, combined with Jobe’s medical innovation and John’s grueling rehabilitation, permanently altered what was possible for an injured throwing arm.
John understood the significance of what they accomplished.
“Thanks to Dr. Jobe, who saved my arm & made it possible for me to continue pitching,” he said in his farewell message.
Ironically, the historical significance of the surgery has sometimes overshadowed John’s accomplishments as a player.
His 288 victories rank among the highest totals for any pitcher outside Cooperstown, while his 700 starts remain among the most in Major League history. John also appeared in three World Series and finished second in Cy Young Award voting twice during his career. Despite appearing on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot for 15 years, he never received the 75 percent required for induction.
That Hall of Fame debate isn’t going away.
John’s statistical case can stand on its own, but his impact on baseball stretches far beyond 288 wins. Few players in the game’s history can legitimately say their careers changed both how baseball was played and how its athletes were medically treated.
Every time another pitcher suffers a torn UCL, John’s name enters the conversation.
But baseball should remember the player along with the procedure.
Tommy John pitched 26 Major League seasons, won 288 games, became a four time All Star, won 20 games three times and helped pitch three teams into the World Series. Then, after suffering an injury that should have ended his career, he came back and won another 164 games.
The surgery carries his name because Tommy John had the courage to try it.
The career deserves to carry its own legacy.
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