Waiting for Elton John as he shows up for a 1975 concert in Los Angeles? A sequined Bob Mackie baseball uniform and a guffawing Charles Nelson Reilly. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
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Good piece by Jonathan Newton in the Washington Post about the arm operation known as Tommy John Surgery. The procedure, created by Dr. Frank Jobe, was first performed in 1974 on the pitcher for whom it was named. The article gets to the heart of just how experimental the ligament-reconstruction procedure was when John went under the knife, and explains what changes to the operation have reduced risk. An excerpt:
“When Jobe operated, he sliced John’s elbow wide open and moved the ulnar nerve in order to reach the bone. He took a tendon from a cadaver’s leg and attached it with screws. Then he hoped John’s body would react favorably and the tendon would serve the same role as the ligament.
‘We didn’t really know whether we could do it or not,’ Jobe said. ‘We didn’t know whether we could heal it or not. We didn’t know whether a tendon would be accepted by the body and receive blood supply and become part of the body.’
Jobe and John waited. John did not throw a ball again for 16 weeks. Jobe decided he should not pitch in a major league game again until one year of rigorous rehab. Every step of the way, the recovery unfolded as Jobe hoped. John returned in 1974, and in seven of the next eight seasons he threw more than 200 innings.
‘I would never have thought it would happen,’ Jobe said. ‘I didn’t do it again for another two years. After another year or so, I had a couple successes. I thought, This may be something we ought to use a little more routinely.”
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Elton John (no relation) performs at Dodger Stadium in 1975, the year Tommy John couldn’t pitch for L.A. as he recuperated from surgery:
Tags: Elton John, Frank Jobe, Tommy John
Come sit by the fire with me, soldier. Why it's warm enough here that you could remove your shirt.
“The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. Rumors about gay stuff.
Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike. That show-off was always looking for an excuse to be shirtless. And he was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold.
“They’re going to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” t’morrah–sure,” he said pompously to a group in the company street.
“It’s a lie! that’s all it is–a thunderin’ lie!” said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trouser’s pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. “I don’t believe the derned old army’s ever going to repeal. I’ve got ready to come out eight times in the last two weeks, and they ain’t repealed yet.”
The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it. But they was always havin’ lovers’ quarrels.
Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate and some slow dancin’. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.
“What’s up, Jim?”
“Th’army’s goin’ t’ repeal.”
“Ah, what yeh talkin’ about? How yeh know it is?”
“Well, yeh kin b’lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don’t care a hang.”
There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew much excited over it. Visibly excited.
There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning the repeal, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him. Thoughts about how incredibly gay the regiment was. The whole thing was like Charles Nelson Reilly Day at Fort Elton John. It was almost like being in the Navy.
The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to repeal. He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. But if that’s what the Tall Soldier and the Loud Soldier wanted to do in their tent, who really cared, he thought. After all, I’m not an insecure child and the important thing is we’ve got a fucking war to win.”
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