Thomas Edward John Jr., born May 22, 1943, was a major-league pitcher whose 288 victories make him the seventh-winningest left-hander in major league history, says Wikipedia.
He's also known for what's called Tommy John surgery, or ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction. The surgery was created for him in the middle of the 1974 season when he damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm. It was performed by Dr. Frank Jobe on Sept. 25, 1974. Although it seemed John would never pitch again, he went on to win 164 games–more than half of his total wins.
On Tuesday, a release on Eurekalert reported that major league pitchers "win more games following Tommy John surgery." The release describes a report at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and published in the American Journal of Sports medicine in 2013.
If you quit there, you've got a nice story. But woe is you if you don't.
Because on the same day, another release at Eurekalert reports that major league pitchers "don't regain performance level after Tommy John surgery." That one comes from the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan.
The two releases don't exactly contradict one another. But what's the bottom line: Do pitchers do better after the surgery or not?
If Eurekalert had wanted to teach us a lesson about the dangers of reporting individual studies without context or background, it couldn't have done a better job.
But this wasn't a lesson. It was just the usual Eurekalert mashup.
And a reminder that if a story is worth doing, it's worth doing well.
(Thanks to Bob Roehr for pointing this out on NASW-Talk.)
-Paul Raeburn
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