Tommy John died Saturday night August 15 at his home in Bradenton, Florida at the age of 83. He had been in hospice care after battling bladder cancer and other ailments. The New York Yankees announced his passing Sunday.
Eight days earlier, the Yankees had posted a video in which John wrote that he wanted to say goodbye to friends and fans. He had known the end was near.
The numbers: 288 career wins, 3.34 ERA, 2,245 strikeouts across 26 major league seasons and six franchises from 1963 to 1989.
Four All-Star selections. A pitcher who finished in the top five of Cy Young Award voting six times and never won it. He deserved to be remembered for the career alone.
He is remembered for something more. On September 25, 1974, at age 31, Tommy John tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow, what had been a death sentence for careers up to that point.
Dr. Frank Jobe performed a then-experimental reconstruction, transplanting a tendon from John's right forearm into the bones of his left elbow in a figure-eight pattern.
Jobe told ESPN he estimated the odds of success at one in a hundred. John returned in 1976 and won 164 more games across 14 more seasons.
The procedure now bears his name. By 2024, 35 percent of all active major league pitchers had undergone Tommy John surgery.
Today approximately 80 percent return to their previous level or higher. He was 83 years old and the Bionic Man.