With every passing year, Tommy John becomes a little less unique. Four weeks shy of his 65th birthday, John is now just one of over 100
players to have the now-routine, once-revolutionary operation that
claims his namesake. Despite 288 career victories, John is also just
one of countless major leaguers who will never garner that little extra
respect needed to make the jump from “very good player” to “Hall of
Famer.”
Sadly, he is becoming just an anecdote in the MLB edition of Trivial Pursuit: Who was the Tommy John Surgery named after? Tommy John. Which retired pitcher not in the Hall of Fame has the most career victories? Tommy John. However, it’s worth considering that while Dr. Frank Jobe pioneered the surgery, there was something special about the tendon in John’s right forearm. It always wanted, above everything else, to keep pitching.
Few pitchers with 280-plus career victories have been unceremoniously ushered to the waiver wire, but on May 30, 1989, the Yankees put John on the chopping block.
The New York Times reported that “John would not retire, as the Yankees had hoped.” In the same spirit that John employed when given a 1 in 100 chance of recovery from surgery back in 1974, 46-year old pitcher refused to believe his career was over.
“We've got people around here who will catch me,” John told The Times. “I'll pitch 40 minutes to an hour every other day, and I'll work hard.''
Pundits and even Yankees manager Dallas Green accused John of latching onto his fading career in pursuit of 300 wins, a Hall of Fame benchmark, but John simply rejected that notion.
“He’s absolutely 100 percent wrong,'' John said of Green according to The Times. ''He has no idea what I play for. I play because I love the game and I love to pitch. I enjoy it more than anything.”
By the 1989 season, John was a bit of a ghost of the player he had been during his first stint in pinstripes a decade before.
The surgically-repaired pitcher threw a staggering 541 innings during the 1979 and 1980 seasons, won 43 games and posted ERAs of 3.30 and 2.96, respectively. He was a frustrating, not fear-inducing pitcher, a fact that voters often use against him. He was not a hard thrower but a sinkerballer with masterful control, and his endurance, which notched 162 career complete games, was consistently invaluable in saving bullpen arms.
The Yankees made a mistake in 1982, underestimating the life left in John’s 39-year old arm, and traded him to the California Angels for a player to be named later (the forgettable Dennis Rasmussen), though the team was able He was the sort of pitcher that current Yankees fans would salivate over, especially after watching Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes consistently struggle to last three innings.
In 1989, John posted a 2-7 record and a 5.08 ERA. It was his second straight season with an ERA at least a half-run above the average for the ballparks in which he had played. However, he was still pushing his miracle arm. He averaged over 6 innings each start, and The Times wrote that “the left-hander was still getting hitters to chase his sinker.” John worked hard following his release, but did not sign with another team. All that was left for John was to wait for a call from the Hall that never came.
A trip through Cooperstown is a strange experience without seeing one of the most unique pitchers to ever play the game. Cooperstown is, after all, a museum, and one that is missing a key display.
Only Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens compare to John in terms of longevity, but neither had John’s handicaps to overcome. He beat a devastating injury. He did not have Ryan’s talent or Clemens’ combination of talent and a steroid regiment. He played with an incredibly small margin for error and did not eclipse a 3.43 ERA during the 12 seasons preceding the surgery or the first five seasons after.
John, who currently manages the Bridgeport Bluefish in the independent Atlantic League, is in danger of slipping into obscurity behind the shadow cast by his infamous surgery. That's a shame, because if you compare him to other pithers during his era, John was more than just a face in the crowd.
John will probobly never win over 75% of the voting members (his high is 29%), but his face ought to shine on the wall, tacked under a one-word sign, celebrating the quality he epitomized: Determination.
With every passing year, Tommy John becomes a little less unique. Four weeks shy of his 65th birthday, John is now just one of over 100
players to have the now-routine, once-revolutionary operation that
claims his namesake. Despite 288 career victories, John is also just
one of countless major leaguers who will never garner that little extra
respect needed to make the jump from “very good player” to “Hall of
Famer.”
“We've got people around here who will catch me,” John told The Times. “I'll pitch 40 minutes to an hour every other day, and I'll work hard.''
