Washington Nationals pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg will undergo the once-dreaded Tommy John surgery, ending his Major League Baseball rookie campaign and sidelining him for most — if not all — of the 2011 season, as well.
The procedure used to mean certain death for a pitcher's career as he knew it.
Nowadays, guys are coming back from the surgery and finding success at the MLB level, sometimes throwing harder than they were before.
Tommy John Surgery Specifics
Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction (UCLR) was nicknamed "Tommy John surgery" after Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Tommy John became the first person to undergo the procedure, in 1974.
In a nutshell, the surgery involves removing a damaged ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow and replacing it with a tendon from somewhere else in the body, usually the forearm.
The recovery time for a Major League Baseball pitcher is, on average, 12 to 18 months, largely because it takes time for the transplanted tendon to learn to become a ligament.
Tommy John Surgery Recovery
During this recovery period, MLB teams begin tweaking the mechanics of a pitchers' delivery, to help him compensate for the damage done to the elbow and to help ensure that the repaired elbow isn't easily damaged.
This change in delivery usually has one of two outcomes — either a pitcher struggles mightily to adjust and never regains his form, or he thrives with a cleaner delivery and ends up throwing harder than he was before.
Tommy John Surgery Success Stories
The percentage of players who make a full recovery from UCLR surgery is larger than ever before, in part because the procedure is less invasive than it used to be, but also because team trainers and doctors have become experts at the rehabilitation process that's necessary after the surgery.
The list of MLB players who've undergone the surgery is long, and many of them found continued success in the majors afterward. Among them: John Smoltz, Chris Carpenter, Josh Johnson, Mariano Rivera, A.J. Burnett, Ryan Dempster, Joakim Soria, Eric Gagne and Kerry Wood.
Others never regained the velocity and control they had before getting injured, but the negative stigma associated with the surgery is fading, in large part because of all the recent success stories.
Case in point: the 2010 MLB All-Star Game featured 10 pitchers who had, at one point, undergone Tommy John surgery.
Will Strasburg find similar success upon returning to the Nationals?
Sources:
Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction (Tommy John Surgery), eOrthopod
Tommy John Surgery, Wikipedia
Adam Sparks - Adam Sparks has been a reporter, copy editor and designer during a 14-year newspaper career that has taken him from Oregon to Hawaii and ...
