More young players getting Tommy John surgeries

Reasons vary, but some say kids are throwing too much

By Tony Schick

The Portland Tribune, Aug 9, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Jordan Henderson was pitching well for the varsity as a Century High freshman, but "my arm was killing me," and at age 16 he had Tommy John elbow surgery to repair a torn ulner collateral ligament.

COURTESY OF JORDAN HENDERSON

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Former Wilson High pitcher Luke Eilers felt his pop during a bullpen session and then searing pain every time he threw.

Jordan Henderson, who played for Century High, couldn’t pick up a carton of milk because it hurt so bad.

Both tore their ulner collateral ligament from throwing a baseball too much, and both needed reconstructive “Tommy John” surgery.

They, along with former Grant High star Paul Raglione, former Mountain View star Seth Davies and others are part of a growing national trend of young athletes needing Tommy John surgery.

Tommy John surgery is a reconstruction of a torn elbow ligament (the ulner collateral ligament or UCL), in which the torn ligament is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. The reconstruction is named after Hall of Fame pitcher Tommy John, who was the first person ever to have the surgery. It was invented and first performed by Dr. Frank Jobe of Los Angeles in 1974.

Since then, the fundamentals of the surgery have changed little, though the overall procedure has neared perfection. In a study released July 12 at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s annual meeting, a reported 83 percent of athletes who had the reconstructive elbow surgery returned to the same level of play or better.

However, the study also found that more and more young athletes need Tommy John surgery.

According to the study’s co-author, Dr. E. Lyle Cain, "Before 1997, this surgery was performed on only 12 of 97 patients who were 18 or younger (12 percent). In 2005 alone, 62 of the 188 operations performed were on high school athletes, a third of the surgical group.”

Some attribute the increase in surgeries to awareness in parents and coaches.

“I think in this day and age kids and parents are a little more cognizant and a little more aware of that stuff,” Jesuit coach Don Lovell says. “I don’t think it’s kids being injured more, but kids are aware that if they are hurt they want to get it taken care of more. They have options that weren’t available 25 years ago.”

Cain says “the increase in the number of UCL reconstructions being done now can be attributed to many things: improved diagnostic techniques, heightened awareness, increased chance of positive outcome with current surgical techniques, but most importantly, the overuse of young throwing arms.”

Both Eilers and Henderson can attest to that. Eilers had his surgery when he was 16. Henderson was the same age and Davies was 18 when they had the procedure done. Raglione, whose arm began deteriorating in 2006 while he was playing for the Kansas City Royals in the Arizona Rookie League, was 20 at the time of his surgery.

Eilers, who as a senior pitched for Wilson’s 2006 state championship team, injured his right throwing arm in the fall of his junior year, warming up for the first game of the fall baseball season.

“When I popped it, I thought it was because I didn’t warm up properly,” Eilers says. “But the MRI showed that it was an injury that happened because of a lot of strain over time — throwing since Little League, throwing every summer, a combination of that.”

After a successful summer, Eilers says he didn’t take his time getting his arm in shape for the fall and started throwing too hard too soon — and that was too much for an arm that already had so much strain on it.

“I think people need to be really careful of the summer and fall seasons. Our coach (Mike Clopton) always told us not to play fall ball, and I’m the poster child for his reason not to,” Eilers says.

Henderson, a former Century outfielder and pitcher, hurt his arm even earlier in his career.

“I initially hurt it when I was in eighth grade from throwing too much,” he says. “I was throwing 150 to 160 pitches a game. I probably did that more than 10 different times.

“I thought it was tendonitis at first,” he says. “And then my freshman year I could still throw, but my arm was killing me.”

The next year, Henderson fell on his arm playing football for Century, and his arm was finished.

“At first, I was told it was a bone bruise,” he says. “But then one day I went to pick up a carton of milk and I couldn’t do it. And I couldn’t throw at all because of the pain. My arm felt horrible. Then I had it diagnosed again, and found out the UCL was completely torn.”

Henderson also said that, according to the diagnosis, the fall he took in football would have been a minimal injury, or none at all, were it not for the damage caused by throwing before high school.

“I had a coach who didn’t realize what was happening, and he never kept me on a pitch count,” Henderson says. “And even in my freshman year, when my arm was hurting really bad, it had become normal for me. I just didn’t realize what had happened.”

For Eilers and Henderson, recovery was a long and difficult process.

UCL reconstruction is a highly specialized procedure, and majority of the procedures are performed in the L.A. area at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic.

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