Tommy John, namesake for a pioneering elbow surgery that saved his career, dies at 83
August 16, 20262:58 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/16/g-s1-138941/tommy-john-elbow-surgery-baseball-pitcher-yankees-dodgers?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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In 1995 I had a 3 hour long reconstructive surgery on my left elbow(1 of 5 surgeries on that elbow).
I was just a youth baseball coach for my very young sons (former pitcher as a youth with a wicked fastball).
Hill Hastings, the most gifted surgeon, who also invented an elbow replacement surgery performed a miracle on my left elbow.
Before the surgery, I had 3 surgeries, the last 2 made my left arm almost useless. I couldn't show my oldest son how to throw the ball correctly because I couldn't extend the arm/elbow. It stayed almost completely bent 100% of the time.
After the surgery, I became his baseball teams head coach for 7 years and was the only coach to throw batting practice, often 150 pitches, 2 times/week for the last 6 years(before that he was on a pitching machine)..
With an arm that couldn't even throw 1 pitch 7 years before that. The arm would get pretty sore but it was so wonderful to get back the use of something lost and do something very significant that I loved to do with it!
His 3 year old son is starting T-Ball next month and I'm the head coach. Coaching T-Ball will be great fun but it will require a completely different skill set than coaching 14 year olds.
