Tommy John, the longtime Major League baseball pitcher whose name is forever linked to the groundbreaking elbow surgery that saved his career and those of countless others since, has died, officials said Sunday.
He was 83.
John is survived by his wife and three children, Tommy, Travis and Tamara, according to a statement from the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the southpaw’s six major league teams.
John had been in hospice care, Reuters reported last week.
“Tommy was an exceptional pitcher throughout his career in Major League Baseball, and his courageous role in becoming the first to have surgery that would go on to bear his name can’t be overstated,” Dodgers President Stan Kasten said in a statement.
“His impact both on and off the field has been felt by ballplayers of all ages and will be for generations to come,” Kasten said.
While John played for a number of teams, he’s well known for his two stints with the Yankees, where he was playing when he finally chose to retire. The team posted a letter from John on Aug. 8 after John missed the Yankees’ annual Old-Timers’ Day event.
He expressed gratitude to the team’s owners and staff in his farewell, as well as to the doctor who saved his career with a surgery to repair a torn ligament in his elbow.
“That surgery has since gone on to save the careers of countless pitchers, including may of the very best in the game today,” John wrote. “Thank you to all the fans who supported me & my teammates for 26 years. I will never forget you.”
John’s career in the major leagues began with a short stint in Cleveland before he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. He was playing on the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1974 when a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow blew his season.
Dr. Frank Jobe, the team’s doctor at the time, performed a surgery to replace the ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in his body. The procedure had never been performed before and was revolutionary at the time.
That surgery is now named after the pitcher, who became known as the “Bionic Man” following a thrilling return from what should have been a career-ending injury.
John told The New York Times in 1977 that he spent the entire 1975 season rebuilding strength in his arm. He worked with team trainer Bill Buhler, soaked his arm and even squeezed Silly Putty to help regain his strength.
“I put together three of those Silly Putty eggs,” John said. “Bill Buhler told me that Silly Putty was better than a rubber ball because I could squeeze all the way through it.”
It would be two years before John would finally return to the Dodgers rotation, playing 31 starts and managing two shutouts in his 1976 comeback season.
When John became a free agent in 1979, he chose to sign a three-year deal with the Yankees. The Yankees had just defeated the Dodgers to win the 1978 World Series the season prior. It would be the team’s last for nearly 20 years.
John went on to pitch for another 14 years after his injury, playing with the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland A’s and the Yankees once again before his retirement in 1989.
He won 288 games in his 26-year career and recorded 2,245 strikeouts. But John never won the coveted Cy Young Award, a distinction given every year to the MLB’s best pitcher that season.
Even without the accolade, John was one of the best-known pitchers in all of baseball thanks to the surgery that bears his name. Some of the sport’s most celebrated modern pitchers have had the procedure, including Shohei Ohtani, Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom.
Cole only just returned to play for the Yankees this season after having the surgery. He expressed gratitude to John after the Yankees won on Aug. 8, according to MLB.com.
“The surgery itself is saving us, but the player had to step up to the table and do it,” Cole said. “Having gone through the process, I can imagine that he was just as diligent — if not more diligent — to the rehab process, and really writing the book for all of us, to a certain extent.”
