NEW BERLIN – Tommy John has done just about everything relating to baseball since retiring from Major League Baseball in 1989 after a 26-year career.
He has worked as a broadcaster for the Yankees, had stints as a manager and coach, served as a pitch man for various products, and he has also traveled to various locales to promote the game he loves. John was the guest celebrity at the Chobani Champions Field grand opening Friday night in New Berlin. John works with a sports marketing firm based out of Orlando, Fla., and he travels all over the country signing autographs and spreading the baseball gospel.
“I just enjoy meeting people, and any time you can pass on advice and stuff to kids, it’s good and it’s fun,” John said. “I think a lot of times kids don’t understand the history of baseball. Before they can really appreciate the game, they have to understand where the game came from, and who made it great.”
These days, if a youth knows the name Tommy John, it comes from the surgery that bears his name. John tore a ligament in his pitching elbow during the 1974 season. In the past, any injury of that sort ended a baseball career. John, pitching with the Los Angeles Dodgers at the time, was fortunate that he doctor for the Dodgers, Dr. Frank Jobe, had developed a revolutionary surgery where the tendon in the forearm was harvested and used to repair the damaged ligament in the elbow.
At the time, John said the decision to have the surgery was a no-brainer. “The big thing is that I knew Dr. Jobe would not lie to me or ‘BS’ me,” John said. “He said, I’m not sure what will happen, but I can tell you this, if you don’t have the surgery, you’ll never pitch in a major league baseball game again. You’ll be able to throw the ball to your kids, but you’ll never get big-league hitters out. I wanted to get big-league hitters out. I said, ‘what’s the downside risk?’ The risk is that if I don’t have the surgery, I’ll never play major league baseball again. If I do have surgery, I might not play again. I said, let’s have it done.”
John’s surgery was indeed a success, and he went on to win more games after his surgery than in the years before. Since John’s surgery, hundreds of baseball players h have successfully undergone the procedure. Surprisingly, not one of those players has ever consulted John. “Not one has ever called me, and I’m not surprised,” John said. “Most baseball players have big egos, and why would they want to call some old fart like me? The surgery really hasn’t changed, and it still takes 12 to 18 months to get back on the mound and pitch.
“If I, Tommy John, were having the surgery now, I would call someone who had the surgery and was successful. I would ask them what to expect, how they did, where there pitfalls, what to look out for, what not to do, what to do...I would want to formulate a game plan. That’s how I pitched.”
John threw from 90 to 92 miles per hour after the surgery – about the same speed before he was hurt. John managed to pitch 15 more seasons after surgery finishing his career with the Yankees. He never was a big strikeout pitcher, and that wasn’t a concern of his anyway. “We didn’t have radar guns, and the only requirement of pitchers back then was to get people out,” John said.
John was critical of the way present-day scouts place so much emphasis on a pitcher’s velocity. “When I pitched, it didn’t matter how hard you threw. Now, it doesn’t matter if you can get batters out, it’s how hard you throw,” he said. “(The radar gun) gives unqualified people a qualification. People that have no clue about baseball can say, ‘he only throws 89, he can’t pitch.’ And the guy that throws 97, he can pitch. The reality is that the guy who throws 89 can pitch, and the guy who throws 97, can’t.”
By the time John reached his early 40s, he no longer hit 90 on the radar gun. Yet, at the age of 44, John was a mainstay in the Yankees’ rotation winning 13 games. He retired midway through the 1989 season with 288 career wins, the seventh-most all-time in Major League history among left-handers.
Despite his longevity and impressive career statistics, John did not receive enough votes for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame during his 15 years of eligibility. John hopes, one day, the Major League Baseball Veterans Committee will vote him in. If not, he is okay with whatever happens. “If it happens, great; if it doesn’t, great,” he said. “Baseball has been great to me, and I’ve never done anything else in my life.”