Today is the 50th anniversary of the surgical procedure that gave Tommy John is career back and, by extension, hundreds upon hundreds of major league pitchers, as well as amateur pitchers, too.
So much has happened since that initial surgery that merely the mention of it can spawn all kinds of discussions, and "Tommy John Surgery" has been the "nickname" for decades for the ulnar ligament replacement procedure in the reconstruction of a pitcher's elbow.
I've talked to Tommy John a couple of times for stories and each time his surgery came up. I can imagine he's talked about it hundreds, if not thousands of times. I had the opportunity to talk to him again recently, but, frankly, I couldn't think of anything new to discuss and didn't want me or him to repeat ourselves, so I passed.
But I have something new when it comes to his cards ... well, it's old, but it's new to me.
I've mentioned many times that Tommy John's 1974 Topps card is the first baseball card I ever pulled from a pack -- a cello pack purchased by my mom. For this reason, the Dodgers have been my favorite team for 50 years.
I pulled this card, probably when John was pitching during the 1974 season. But it's possible I pulled it after he was sidelined after he felt something in his elbow while pitching to the Expos' Hal Breeden in July of that year. Heck, I could have pulled it the very day that John went down. I'll never know.
But I had no idea that John was injured that year or that it was a major blow to a team that was in contention for the pennant at the time. I didn't know who this guy was or really who the Dodgers were, just that I liked this card.
I can't tell you when I learned of John's surgery. I'm guessing it was when news was made about his 1976 comeback and being N.L. Comeback Player of the Year. I couldn't rely on my baseball cards to tell me, that's for sure.
The next time I pulled a Tommy John card out of a pack was in 1976. I noticed the "On Disabled List" line. It wiped out the whole year! But I didn't know why and Topps wasn't helping.
Topps continued to stay a quiet in the following years. Not a mention. Not a single word. Not after he won Comeback Player of the Year, not after he won 20 games and helped the Dodgers to the World Series, not after he joined the Yankees. Heck, Topps wanted to tell you that he led the Dodgers in W-L percentage in 1973!
As the years went one, the 1975 "On Disabled List" moved higher and higher in John's series of stats but not a word about why. Topps hid behind all those career stats they had to pack in.
Right to the end of John's career, Topps' flagship sets remained mum about the milestone surgery that kept him pitching for 15 more years!
Thankfully, there were other card means for getting information.
In 1981 -- more than six years after the surgery -- it was finally mentioned on the backs of Donruss and Kellogg's cards.
Donruss continued to mention it, off and on, on its card backs throughout the 1980s.
Actually, if you include card sets that were not available down at the retail store or off the side of a cereal box, you could've received your info about TJ surgery earlier.
Both the 1975/1976 and 1978 SSPC sets mention arm troubles or the surgery on the back of his cards.
So it's all on Topps now (and Fleer, but they were never much for words on the back). Did Topps ever bring up Tommy John surgery on Tommy John's cards during his career?
Yes. At the very end.
Tommy John mentions it himself on his 1989 Topps Baseball Talk card.
After listening to that, and then watching the local TV station video of John discussing the surgery now, he said almost the exact same things, 35 years apart. It's been a long time for John. What else is there to say? (I notice none of the cards mention the guy who performed the surgery, Dr. Frank Jobe).
I know that he, and many other people, wish there wasn't as many TJ surgeries as there are now. Me, too.
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