Tommy John Research Paper

Words: 1980
Pages: 8

Tommy John Surgery
Brandon Misselhorn
Lindenwood University

Most baseball players are very familiar with a surgery called Tommy John. It is a surgery that is more likely performed on baseball pitchers than other athletes or people. It appears that this type of surgery is being performed at a much earlier age, as early as high school. In addition, in recent times there has been a fifty percent increase in the number of Tommy John surgeries done. Even after the surgery is done, the success rate of the surgery depends on the pitcher’s arm, but it has shown a very good success rate. Therefore, it is important that all pitchers are well informed when it comes to injuries.
In order to understand Tommy John, one must know how it originated, what it is, and why it is performed. In an article by Kelley (2017), he reports that the surgery originated in 1974 when a left-handed pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers named Tommy John complained of a sudden pop in his elbow and then was unable to pitch a baseball. He continues by saying
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Jim Baumbach (2014) reports that there has been on a study done on pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery and returned to the mound. According to
Baumbach, last fall, Charles Bush-Joseph, a team doctor, decided to get together a team of researchers to study how effective the Tommy John surgery was. The study mainly focused on the statistics. In addition, Baumbach reports that the study looked specifically at major league players who have had the surgery. Furthermore, the study looked at a specific time period which included the two years before and two years after the surgery. When discussing the findings, he reports that the study concluded that eighty-three percent of the pitchers, who had the surgery done, returned to the mound (Baumbach, 2014). Also he reports that this may seem low, however, when looking at the data collected, they looked at the surgeries that were performed