Tommy John, pioneer of elbow surgery for MLB pitchers, dies at 83

Tommy John, who won 288 games during a 26-year big league career and became the first pitcher to successfully return following groundbreaking elbow surgery that later was named after him, has died. He was 83.

He died at his home in Bradenton, Florida, on Saturday night, agent Mike Maguire said Sunday. He had been in hospice care.

On Aug. 8, the New York Yankees released a social media post in which John wrote that he wanted to say goodbye to everyone, including friends and fans who followed him throughout his career, saying, “I will never forget you.”

The Yankees called John “a bedrock of our rotation during his time in pinstripes and a longtime favorite of Yankees fans.”

John was a four-time All-Star with a record of 288-231 and a 3.34 ERA during a career that stretched from 1963 to 1989. He pitched for Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees, the California Angels and the Oakland Athletics.

The left-hander was 31 years old when he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in 1974, a death knell for pitchers’ careers to that point.

John allowed Dr. Frank Jobe, the Dodgers’ team physician, to replace the ligament with a tendon from his right forearm. Jobe gave the surgery 100-to-1 odds of being successful.

The procedure had been done on others before, although it was usually performed on wrists and hands. John was the first pitcher to have it done on his elbow.

More than 2,600 big leaguers and thousands more amateurs have since had UCL reconstructions, better known as Tommy John surgery. It’s been a godsend for many of baseball’s greatest stars, including two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani, three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander and even Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper.

“If you put it in dollars and cents, I think there’s no question that Tommy John is the most valuable reconstructive procedure there is,” Dodgers team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache told The Associated Press in 2024.

Born Thomas Edward John Jr. on May 22, 1943, in Terre Haute, Indiana, he was a top baseball and basketball player at the city’s Gerstmeyer High. He graduated in 1961 as valedictorian but did not give the commencement speech because of a stutter. Despite being recruited by the University of Kentucky to play basketball, John chose baseball and signed with Cleveland.

John recorded 2,245 strikeouts but never led either league in wins or strikeouts. He had the second-most wins of any pitcher since 1900 not to be elected to the Hall of Fame. From 1995 through 2009, John was on the Hall of Fame ballot, but he never received more than 31.7% of the votes, falling well short of the 75% required for election.

Known for his longevity, John was the opening day starter for both the 1966 Chicago White Sox and the 1989 New York Yankees. He won 124 games before his UCL repair and 164 after. His final appearance came days after his 46th birthday.

“While his incredible longevity and post-surgery achievements changed the fortunes and trajectory of countless athletes around the world, it also overshadowed his excellence as a pitcher,” the Yankees said in a statement. “We pause to remember the totality of his legacy — his competitiveness and skill, his penchant for conversation, his kind and gracious nature, and his stature as an athletic and medical pioneer.”

In 1974, John had a 13-3 record and led the National League in victories going into the All-Star break. He was pitching against the Montreal Expos when he permanently damaged the UCL in his left arm. After a month, the injury had not improved.

During the four-hour surgery on Sept. 25, 1974, Jobe made holes in the humerus and ulna bones of John’s left arm and used anchors to insert the tendon in a figure-eight pattern.

At first, John’s left hand was shriveled and he lacked feeling in several of his fingers because of damage to the ulnar nerve. Jobe performed a second procedure to reroute the nerve that was necessary to John’s full recovery.

John’s arm was in a cast for four months. He had recovered the full range of motion in his left arm by spring training of 1975 and spent that season resting, healing and rebuilding strength in his arm. John worked with fellow Dodgers pitcher Mike Marshall, who had a doctorate in kinesiology, on learning a different grip.

That September he made five appearances during an offseason instructional league, working his way up to seven innings by his final game.

John resumed pitching for the Dodgers in 1976 as the fourth starter in their rotation. He allowed three runs in five innings and took the loss in his first start against Atlanta, the first time any pitcher had started a game following UCL reconstructive surgery.

John donated the original cast from his surgery to the Smithsonian Institution in June 2022. His teammates on the 1974 Dodgers signed it, as well as Jobe and the team’s Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully.

The procedure has become so widely known that in 2019, Merriam-Webster added the term to its dictionary.

John made 31 starts for the Dodgers in 1976, posting a 10-10 record, a 3.09 ERA, 91 strikeouts, 61 walks and 207 hits allowed in 207 innings.

In 1977, he won 20 games for the first time in his career, finishing with a 20-7 record. He finished second behind Philadelphia’s Steve Carlton in voting for the NL Cy Young Award.

Over 50 years later, Tommy John surgery is as much a part of baseball as peanuts and hot dogs. Advanced training methods are helping pitchers of all ages throw harder than ever. They take comfort knowing a torn UCL won’t necessarily end their careers.


(AP file photo Damian Dovarganes)