Tommy John celebrated his 75th birthday earlier this year, but the surgery that bears his name is well over 40 years old. In fact, enter a room of pitchers and you’ll find that the sampling of those who’ve had Tommy John surgery is akin to going to a fraternity and trying to find a dude who has ever had a hangover.
Orthopedic surgeon Frank Jobe performed the first procedure — also known as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction — on the Los Angeles Dodgers lefty back in 1974. Ever since, it has not only become more ubiquitous, but also more proven in terms of players returning their previous form after extensive rehab.
With a room full of pitchers who’ve had the procedure and a seemingly different story of recovery from each one, I thought why not give each pitcher a chance to explain what their triumphs and tribulations were like as they battled to come back from the surgery.
Previous versions:
Every pitcher is asked the same questions; every pitcher will almost certainly give different answers.
These are the Tommy John Files:
Player – Right-handed Reliever Alan Busenitz
The surgery — when/where/who performed it?
“April 25, 2012. It’s a day you usually remember. Dr. Thomas Myers out of Atlanta. I had it while I was in college, so it wasn’t a team doctor or anything. He was the closest guy who had a fair amount of experience. He’d done a fellowship under Dr. Andrews. At the time I think he had done like 600 of them, and the only one that “failed” was a guy who couldn’t get all the way back mentally, because there’s a mental side to it of course.”
The injury — when/where did it happen?/Was the pain instantaneous, or over time?
“Mine didn’t happen on a specific date. It was while I was in college at Kennesaw State. My velo started dropping and my elbow was hurting. Next thing you know, I couldn’t touch my ear. It was bad. I finally came in and told them I didn’t know what was going on.
“Here’s the story: Going into my senior year — the summer before — they wanted me to work on being a starter because I had a shot at being a weekend starter. So I was starting for a summer ball team and was doing good. Working my way up to like 6-7 innings. Kind of toward the end of the summer, I was doing well and was like six innings in and my elbow was, I don’t know, I just thought it was kind of tired, maybe a little tight. So I go back out and throw the seventh, and when I came back in, I sat for a few minutes planning to go back out there for the eighth. Suddenly I got really tight and I told them I couldn’t go back out. They said it was fine; shut it down. The next morning I wake up, and my elbow is swollen and I have probably like 10 degrees of range of motion.
“I started a bit in my first year of college at the JuCo. Not that long. Anyway, so I came out and my elbow was all swollen. I called the trainer at Kennesaw and he was like ‘What in the world did you do? We can’t even take an MRI until the swelling goes down.’ So we waited a couple weeks for an MRI. Nothing. Had a CT scan. Nothing. Then they thought it might be a bone spur. X-Ray. Nothing.
“So obviously there’s something that happened, but they’re not seeing anything. So I took the rest of the summer off. I came into the fall, started throwing and never really had the full range of motion. It might have messed up my mechanics a little bit, but nothing too big. So I kind of go through the fall and it’s a little tight feeling, but I pitch through it.
“Coming into spring and we’re doing intersquad stuff and I’m competing for the weekend spot. The last intersquad game was a start, and I touched 94. So at this time I was 92-93, then I touched 94. They tell me afterward that I was going to be like the Saturday guy. So I’m psyched. My goal was to get to 95 mph; my dad and I had a bet, so I was going to try hit it my first weekend starting. The payoff was getting to drive his cool truck for like a week or something while I was in college. You gotta show off! So I was like ‘I’m for sure hitting 95.’ We’re playing Virginia Tech. I go out there and top out at 91.
“The next day I come in and I’m like ‘Oh man, my elbow is done.’ It’s stiff as a board. They did the tests and said it looked fine, so I had a Cortisone shot. I guess that made it feel better. The next start, by like the fifth or sixth inning, I was throwing like 86 or something. They sent me to the doctor, and he was like ‘Oh yeah, it’s gone.’ There wasn’t anything left. It wasn’t connected at all anymore.
“I don’t know how they missed it the first time. Maybe it was still there? That’s what I don’t know.”
Between the diagnosis and the surgery, what was the pain like?
“The time between the two was probably a month or a month-and-a-half. Mine wasn’t like a lot of guys where they can’t turn a doorknob or that sort of thing. That’s was one reason why they didn’t think I needed to have (the surgery). I didn’t have any of those normal things. As far as all that stuff went, it was fine. But when I went to throw a baseball, it just wasn’t working.”
Rehab
Were there peaks and valleys? What were they like?
“It’s definitely different. The first time I threw, I didn’t even want to throw. The first scheduled day was like from 30 feet, and mentally I was like ‘I can’t do this.’ You’re just paranoid. Probably the scariest thing to me was probably a couple months in and I think we were at 100 feet or something, and I got scar tissue popping and I thought I was done. I was just freaked out. I didn’t throw for like two days. I said ‘I’m done. I’m going home.’”
What was the pain like during rehab?
“That’s kind of tough. Probably the first 18 months, mine was really painful. I don’t know why. Different pain from before, like in the muscle instead of the ligament, I guess. I didn’t want to say a whole lot. I had just gotten drafted. It was one of those things where I was like ‘Man, is this how I’m going to feel for the rest of my life? I don’t know about this.’ Right around 18 months, I think we got to the All-Star Break. When I came back I was like ‘Wow, I feel good.’ I had a jump in velo and all that stuff. It was definitely different. My arm doesn’t feel like it did before. Before, I hardly ever got sore.”
Recovery timetable
How soon did you start throwing again?
“I don’t know the exact time. I want to say it’s three or four months. Whatever the standard is. I don’t remember the exact date. I know I threw in my first game at like 10 months and a week.”
How soon did you throw off a mound?
“I have a video of it, but I don’t know what day it was exactly. I remember that was pretty scary, but I felt good. I followed the standard probably up until I rushed coming back for my senior year — well, my super senior year — and I knew if I wanted to get drafted, it was now or never.”
How soon did you throw in a game?
“10 months and a week. I think it was opening weekend.”
Did you feel tentative at all?
“Not in a game, no. By that time I’d thrown live to batters, and stuff. I felt pretty good. Probably the thing I was tentative about was later in the year when I threw back-to-back, or something. I was kind of worried. Like “*phew* I don’t know about this.’ But it was the same deal, I guess.“
When did you feel your stuff came back/started to come back? Was it different for each pitch?
“I don’t think I felt like I couldn’t throw any of my pitches early on. Like I’m not saying I had perfect feel for them or anything, but I felt like they were fine. I was similar to where I was before, and I was like 90-93 mph and had my curveball. At 18 months my jump was like 90-93 to like 94-96.”
When did you feel 100% again?
“About the 18-month mark at the All-Star Break at Low-A.”
(WRITER’S NOTE: Busenitz still got to drive the truck when he hit 95 mph after the surgery.)
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