Tommy John
| Tommy John | |||
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John in 2008, attending a pre-All-Star game party in The Bronx.
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: May 22, 1943 Terre Haute, Indiana |
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| MLB debut | |||
| September 6, 1963, for the Cleveland Indians | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| May 25, 1989, for the New York Yankees | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 288–231 | ||
| Earned run average | 3.34 | ||
| Strikeouts | 2,245 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
Thomas Edward John Jr. (born May 22, 1943) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball whose 288 career victories rank as the seventh highest total among left-handers in major league history. He is also known for the revolutionary surgery, now named after him, which was performed on a damaged ligament in his pitching arm. Well over half of John's career wins came after his surgery.
John was an outstanding basketball player at Gerstmeyer High School in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he held the city single game scoring record. Choosing baseball when he realized he would not go on to play professional basketball, John signed with the Cleveland Indians and made his major league debut at twenty years-old in 1963. Following two partial seasons with the Indians, John showed occasional excellence during seven respectable years as a starting pitcher with the Chicago White Sox. However, it was a trade before the 1972 season to the Los Angeles Dodgers for mercurial slugger Dick Allen that began a skein of John's most famous years, first with the Dodgers and subsequently with the New York Yankees, where he posted a pair of 20-win seasons and was twice an All-Star. John was also named an All-Star in 1968 with the White Sox and 1978 with LA. He played in all three Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series of his era (1977, 1978 and 1981), having switched over to the Yankees by the time the Dodgers won the Series in 1981.
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