{"id":37094,"date":"2026-08-10T19:59:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37094"},"modified":"2026-08-10T19:59:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:59:26","slug":"tommy-john-ex-yankees-pitcher-and-namesake-of-career-saving-surgery-says-goodbye-amid-health-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37094","title":{"rendered":"Tommy John, ex-Yankees pitcher and namesake of career-saving surgery, says goodbye amid health issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260810-tommy-john-vl-1017a-2420a9.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-df6d1e\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThanks to Dr. Jobe, who saved my arm &amp; made it possible for me to continue pitching,\u201d John said in his statement. \u201cThat surgery has since gone on to save the careers of countless pitchers, including many of the very best in the game today.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-464c28\" class=\"body-graf\">The procedure has become so common,  the word \u201csurgery\u201d is often dropped in baseball parlance. A player could say he\u2019s \u201chaving Tommy John\u201d and those in the game would know exactly what that meant.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-672b93\" class=\"body-graf\">Some of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/top-10-tommy-john-surgery-success-stories-c295719048\" target=\"_blank\">modern baseball\u2019s greatest pitchers<\/a>, such as Justin Verlander, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbclosangeles.com\/mlb\/shohei-ohtani-dodges-questions-on-tommy-john-surgery-at-introductory-news-conference\/3291623\/\" target=\"_blank\">Shohei Ohtani<\/a>, Tarik Skubal and Chris Sale, have had this surgery.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-460ff9\" class=\"body-graf\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnto01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">John\u2019s career<\/a> included stints with the Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels, Oakland A\u2019s and Cleveland Indians.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-83c716\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThe day I left for my first job as a pitcher, my father looked at me &amp; said, \u2018Good luck, Tommy. Just remember one thing: whether you make it big in the big leagues or you don\u2019t, you\u2019ll always just be Tommy John from Terre Haute, Indiana.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-86bc27\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">\u201cI\u2019ve never forgotten those words. Thank you &amp; God Bless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThanks to Dr. Jobe, who saved my arm &amp; made it possible for me to continue pitching,\u201d John said in his statement. \u201cThat surgery has since gone on to save the careers of countless pitchers, including many of the very best in the game today.\u201d The procedure has become so common, the word \u201csurgery\u201d is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260810-tommy-john-vl-1021a-16a7b2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}