Passan: Why Tommy John's legacy will forever live on across baseball — SkimNews
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- Tommy John died Saturday night at 83 following a 2024 bladder cancer diagnosis, finishing his 26-season career as a 288-game winner who logged more innings than all but 19 of the nearly 10,000 men who have pitched in Major League Baseball
- On Sept. 25, 1974, Dr. Frank Jobe performed the first UCL reconstruction on John's left elbow using a palmaris longus tendon from his wrist — a procedure Jobe initially gave 1-in-100 odds of working (though he privately estimated 90%)
- The next seven players who underwent UCL reconstructions after John all failed to pitch in the major leagues with their repaired elbows, and Jobe did not publish his findings in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery until 12 years later
- John returned to throw 166 of his 288 career wins and 2,544⅔ of his 4,710⅓ innings after the surgery, retiring in 1989 at age 46 with runner-up finishes in both the 1977 NL and 1979 AL Cy Young voting
- An estimated 40% of current major league pitchers have undergone Tommy John surgery, with John Smoltz, Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Shohei Ohtani (twice), and Jacob deGrom (twice) among those whose careers were extended by the procedure
- John joked he wished he had trademarked the surgery — 'if I had any idea it would've been this big, I would've trademarked the surgery and had all those SOBs pay me' — and the Hall of Fame honored Jobe during 2013 induction week, two months after Jobe's death in early 2014
Why it matters: With roughly 40% of today's major league pitchers having undergone Tommy John surgery, the procedure has become so embedded in the sport that 'TJ' now dictates how teams manage pitcher workloads, contracts, and draft strategy. John gambled on a 1-in-100 procedure and turned his name into the most-feared three-letter abbreviation in baseball — a legacy that will continue long after his death.
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