re: Doug Norman out for the year

I need to pick The Arm (Jeff Passan) back up. I started it last summer, but never finished it. There is a chapter that explains the whole surgery. When you mentioned the touching thumb and pinky thing I remembered reading about it in that book.

The big takeaway from the book though is that we still mostly don't know shite about what truly causes it, but we have some ideas. And any prevention we're doing now is simply guesswork.

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The big takeaway from the book though is that we still mostly don't know shite about what truly causes it, but we have some ideas

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And we don't really understand the physiology of the surgery either. You take a tendon and put it where a ligament used to be. After 5-7 months, it no longer has characteristics of a tendon and "acts" like a ligament. And after a few years an MRI can't pick up any differences other than some scar tissue if anything. And even though it has a huge success rate, there are still some oddities that can happen.

1) Different doctors cut in different places. Some cut between the two arm bones while others cut along the inside. Cutting between the bones means you have easier access to do the work while cutting on the inside means you have to work around or even move the nerve that runs right along side that ligament. That can be risky. Parts of my arm are still numb.

2) How the tendon is knotted isn't consistent. Dr. Field patented the "Field Knot" which has a much higher success rate. However, no matter which knot used, it has to be "folded down" to keep away from that nerve. Mine, of course, moved. Originally, we though the discomfort I was feeling was scar tissue and I was getting "scraped" twice a week. Scraping is where they take a plastic device that's about as thin as the back edge of a butter knife and literally scrap along the muscle and bone to try and break up the tissue. I ended up having to have a second surgery for the knot to be cut. It was pointless by that point.

3) Rehab has nothing to do with the elbow other than range of motion. That's the first 1-2 months is just being able to straighten your arm out again. After that, it's all shoulder and core strength. Shoulder injuries are way more common for post-TJ pitchers. Too much; too soon, or some combination.

few and far between, right?

Do we get Cartwright back at any point this year?

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Do we get Cartwright back at any point this year?

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Nope.

Prayers for a speedy recovery!