Tommy John Surgery

Just recieved my latest issue of Baseball Digest and it has a pretty good article on Tommy John Surgery and how its helped major league pitchers to continue with their career.

The article stats that players typically perform as well, if not better, after the operation and have stronger arms, with radar gun readings. Billy Koch who was throwing in the high 90's before he blew out his arm is now, according to some reports, has hit 108 and 103 after the surgery.

I highly doubt that but ya never know. Still it doesnt help Koch much because he has horrible control.

Kerry Wood said, "I hit my top speed after the surgery......I'm throwing harder, consistently.

Towards the end of the article it says, most of the players say they throw the same pitchers post-surgery with basically the same mechanics. Wood is the one exception.

"I really had to change the way I was throwing across my body," he says. "If I didnt fix that, I would eventually have the problem again. I dont have that big loopy slurve (combination curveball anb slider) I was throwing early in my career, which is probably a good thing."

I was watching Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game today at MLB.com and that slurve was really amazing. Its just as spectacular today as when i saw it for the 1st time way back in 1998. Once in awhile Wood will pull it out of the closet and use it, i can just recall a few times since his surgery he has actually used it.