During spring training in 1955, after Dodgers starter Johnny Podresâlater Jobeâs patientâgot pounded in an exhibition game, Spooner came in without sufficient time to warm up. His left shoulder barked. He exited the game and started treatment. The pain didnât ebb. He tried to rehab it. Nothing worked. Doctors went medieval.
âThey pulled his teeth,â Koufax said. âThey thought poison was coming down into his shoulder.â He was not exaggerating. With all medical options exhausted, doctors yanked teeth out of fear they were emitting harmful toxins into the bloodstream. Karl Spooner threw his final major league pitch when he was twenty-four. His shoulder never stopped hurting.
T HE ARM NEEDED A SAVIOR, and even if he couldnât remedy the shoulder, Frank Jobe resolved to rescue the elbow. The surgery existed only in theory, in Jobeâs mind, and still he went into it with a confident and fully supportive team. âThe nurses in the operating room said, âYour dad has a certain way of setting his jaw,ââ said Dr. Chris Jobe, one of Jobeâs sons and himself an orthopedic surgeon who today performs Tommy John surgeries. âIt seems like the operating room is ten degrees colder all of a sudden. He didnât have to get mad. He was sensitive to you, and you became sensitive to him.â
On September 25, 1974, eight years after Koufax retired frombaseball, Jobe scrubbed in with Robert Kerlan, Herbert Stark, a doctor on fellowship named Stephen Lombardo, and a gang of support staff at Centinela Hospital Medical Center. In order to reach the UCL, Jobe detached the flexor-pronator muscles from their connection in the upper arm. Holes drilled, palmaris longus harvested, he wove it into position and tied it tight. Jobe transposed the ulnar nerve, tucking it beneath the muscles and securing it before closing Johnâs elbow. The procedure took four hours, some of which consisted of Stark good-naturedly bugging Jobe for Lakers tickets.
âThe most impressive thing to me as a rookie doctor was that technically he did the surgery like heâd done it a thousand times,â Lombardo said. âIt would be like you and me opening a door and walking into a room. It wasnât just a random thing that was done. It was very well thought out.
âHe was a gifted surgeon. Most orthopedic surgeons are well trained. But he had a style and smoothness to his surgical technique that was many standard deviations above the rest. I knew it was special. He had a good patient, too. You canât win a dance contest unless you have a good partner, and Tommy John was a great dancer.â
History glosses over an important part of the original Tommy John surgery: for almost three months, it looked like a complete failure. After the procedure, Johnâs left hand curled into a claw, his pinky and ring fingers numb bordering on frozen, the other three suffering from varying levels of discomfort depending on the day. The tendon in Johnâs elbow was assimilating fine, the pain dwindling, but his hand looked gnarled.
Jobeâs fear had come true: damage to the ulnar nerve. Itâs why nearly forty years later Neal ElAttrache treated Coffeyâs with such care. The slightest mishandling can doom the recovery. In mid-December 1974, Jobe reopened Johnâs arm, moved the nerve back to its original location, and hoped that rest for the remainder of the offseason would prepare him for spring training.
Everything was a guess. No protocol yet existed for the rehabilitation, leaving John to experiment. Jobe did offer John one nugget of advice: âFollow your body.â A month after the removal of the cast that immobilized his arm, John joined his teammates at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, for conditioning activities. When they went to the pitching mounds, he sidled over to a concrete partition at the facility and taught himself to throw again. To fight the lingering
âThey pulled his teeth,â Koufax said. âThey thought poison was coming down into his shoulder.â He was not exaggerating. With all medical options exhausted, doctors yanked teeth out of fear they were emitting harmful toxins into the bloodstream. Karl Spooner threw his final major league pitch when he was twenty-four. His shoulder never stopped hurting.
T HE ARM NEEDED A SAVIOR, and even if he couldnât remedy the shoulder, Frank Jobe resolved to rescue the elbow. The surgery existed only in theory, in Jobeâs mind, and still he went into it with a confident and fully supportive team. âThe nurses in the operating room said, âYour dad has a certain way of setting his jaw,ââ said Dr. Chris Jobe, one of Jobeâs sons and himself an orthopedic surgeon who today performs Tommy John surgeries. âIt seems like the operating room is ten degrees colder all of a sudden. He didnât have to get mad. He was sensitive to you, and you became sensitive to him.â
On September 25, 1974, eight years after Koufax retired frombaseball, Jobe scrubbed in with Robert Kerlan, Herbert Stark, a doctor on fellowship named Stephen Lombardo, and a gang of support staff at Centinela Hospital Medical Center. In order to reach the UCL, Jobe detached the flexor-pronator muscles from their connection in the upper arm. Holes drilled, palmaris longus harvested, he wove it into position and tied it tight. Jobe transposed the ulnar nerve, tucking it beneath the muscles and securing it before closing Johnâs elbow. The procedure took four hours, some of which consisted of Stark good-naturedly bugging Jobe for Lakers tickets.
âThe most impressive thing to me as a rookie doctor was that technically he did the surgery like heâd done it a thousand times,â Lombardo said. âIt would be like you and me opening a door and walking into a room. It wasnât just a random thing that was done. It was very well thought out.
âHe was a gifted surgeon. Most orthopedic surgeons are well trained. But he had a style and smoothness to his surgical technique that was many standard deviations above the rest. I knew it was special. He had a good patient, too. You canât win a dance contest unless you have a good partner, and Tommy John was a great dancer.â
History glosses over an important part of the original Tommy John surgery: for almost three months, it looked like a complete failure. After the procedure, Johnâs left hand curled into a claw, his pinky and ring fingers numb bordering on frozen, the other three suffering from varying levels of discomfort depending on the day. The tendon in Johnâs elbow was assimilating fine, the pain dwindling, but his hand looked gnarled.
Jobeâs fear had come true: damage to the ulnar nerve. Itâs why nearly forty years later Neal ElAttrache treated Coffeyâs with such care. The slightest mishandling can doom the recovery. In mid-December 1974, Jobe reopened Johnâs arm, moved the nerve back to its original location, and hoped that rest for the remainder of the offseason would prepare him for spring training.
Everything was a guess. No protocol yet existed for the rehabilitation, leaving John to experiment. Jobe did offer John one nugget of advice: âFollow your body.â A month after the removal of the cast that immobilized his arm, John joined his teammates at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, for conditioning activities. When they went to the pitching mounds, he sidled over to a concrete partition at the facility and taught himself to throw again. To fight the lingering
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