Tommy John Surgery

From SoSH

1 History
2 Today
3 Notable Players Who Have Undergone Tommy John Surgery
- 3.1 Current and Former Red Sox players
- 3.2 Other Noted Players
4 External Links

History

Known amongst doctors as ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction, Tommy John Surgery is a procedure in which a ligament on the medial (inside) part of the elbow is replaced with a ligament from another part of the body (forearm, knee, foot, etc.). The surgery also originally involved transposition of the ulnar nerve, but with refinement of the technique that is no longer necessary and may be why the recovery rate is better and more predictable. The surgery, named after former Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Tommy John, was first performed by Frank Jobe in 1974 on John.

In 1974, at the age of 31, John was diagnosed with a torn UCL in his pitching arm, an injury that appeared to be career threatening. On September 25, 1974, Jobe performed this landmark surgery. In this surgery, Jobe replaced the torn UCL with a tendon from John's forearm, threading the healthy tendon through holes into the bone above and below the elbow. At the time of the surgery, Jobe believed John had a 1% chance of recovery. After 18 months of rehab, John finally returned for the 1976 season. He went on to pitch until 1989, retiring at the age of 46 with 288 career wins, 164 of which came after the surgery.

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Today

Today, there is an 85 to 90 percent chance of a full recovery. The procedure typically takes about 1 hour and is followed by months of recovery. Position players typically take six months to fully recover, whereas pitchers take closer to a year for full recovery. After six months of rehabilitation, pitchers can usually begin throwing again. Whereas John was in a cast for 16 weeks, players now start their rehabilitation right away. Due to the intense rehabilitation and rebuilding of arm strenght, many pitchers find that they have picked up a few miles per hour on their fastball.

It is still unkown as to what is the major cause of the tear. Many speculate that it is wear-and-tear on the elbow along with the wide variety of breaking pitches that are now thrown, such as the curveball and the split-finger fastball, but there is no definitive answer yet. In the past decade, there has been a disturbing upswing in the number of Tommy John Surgeries in children ages 10-18. Many doctors attribute this to the year-round baseball that is played now and breaking balls, which children are now throwing at younger ages.