This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 25:
= Gail Goodrich: UCLA basketball and Los Angeles Lakers
= Tommy John: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Jim Abbott: California Angels
= Troy Glaus: UCLA baseball and Anaheim Angels
= Norm Van Brocklin: Los Angeles Rams
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 25:
= Rafer Johnson: UCLA basketball
= Paul Westphal: USC basketball
= JK McKay: USC football
= Frank Howard: Los Angeles Dodgers
The most interesting story for No. 25:
Tommy John: Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (1972-74, 1976-78), California Angels pitcher (1982 to 1985)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Inglewood (The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic at Centinela Hospital, known today as the Cedars Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Santa Monica); Downey (Rancho Los Amigos Hospital); Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium), Anaheim (Angels Stadium)
Tommy John’s extensive statistical biography as posted on the Baseball Reference website shows 26 years as a Major League Baseball pitcher. It starts at age 20 in Cleveland in 1963. It goes to age 46 in New York in 1989.
The data is neatly split into two distinct hemispheres.
The first 12 include his first three year in Los Angeles. The last 14 start with his last three seasons as a Dodger, and includes a stint with the California Angels across town.
The line dividing the two in 1975 reads: “Did not play in major or minor leagues (Eponymous Surgical Procedure).”
If something is eponymous, it refers to a person, place or thing that something else is named after. Tommy John Surgery may be more ubiquitous than anyone considering it eponymous. We can buy something called Tommy John underwear. We might think it came from the official entry (along with the phonetics) in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
The integrity of the Ulnar Collateral Ligament — aka, UCL — is often defined in MLB history as before or after Tommy John was connected to it. Someone had to be first, trusting a doctor creative and brave enough to try something. What did Tommy John have to lose?
Continue reading “No. 25: Tommy John (and Dr. Frank Jobe)”
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