Cooperstown should call on good doctor
Dr. Frank Jobe never struck out a batter in the major leagues, but a case can be made that he is the game’s career saves leader.
Jobe, who died Thursday at 88, was a pioneer in ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, more commonly known in baseball circles as Tommy John surgery.
It’s a procedure in which doctors replace the ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow with a tendon from elsewhere in the body.
Jobe’s work has been credited for saving the careers of so many pitchers that many believe he has earned his own place among the greats of the game at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times makes a pretty good case for it.
“The scope of what Jobe started is difficult to exaggerate,” Fenno wrote. “A study last year by Bleacher Report sports medicine writer Will Carroll found that one-third of pitchers on opening day rosters in 2013 had undergone Tommy John surgery.
“That’s 124 pitchers whose careers otherwise would’ve ended up on the scrap heap, and that’s not counting the minor leagues, college and high school players it’s helped.
“Stephen Strasburg had it.
Same with Tim Hudson. Jordan Zimmermann. Chris Carpenter.
Chad Billingsley. John Smoltz. The list goes on.
“The surgery is so ubiquitous as to be seen as almost routine, at least by those who don’t have to undergo the procedure. But pitching careers that would’ve been finished pre-Jobe now return to their previous form with such regularity as to hardly draw note.
“Last July, the Hall of Fame honored Jobe during the induction weekend. That didn’t include a plaque. A campaign that pushed for Jobe’s induction ended the effort last December.
“Even in Cooperstown, transcendence is a difficult thing to find, names like Jackie Robinson excepted. There are smooth swingers and scoundrels, men who built stellar farm systems and won pennant after pennant, home run kings and, wedged in there, 10 umpires.
“Thirty-three executives are in the Hall of Fame. Twenty managers, too.
“Few, though, left a legacy that sprawls through every level of baseball like Jobe’s.”
Smoke on Smokey
The next best thing to being Burt Reynolds is pretending to be Burt Reynolds.
At least, that’s the way Tony Stewart sees it.
Sponsor Mobil 1 is giving the three-time NASCAR champion an opportunity to do his best Burt Reynolds impression in a series of video advertisements called “Smoke is the Bandit with Mobil 1” that will be released later this month on Mobil 1’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.
The ads play off the popular 1977 movie Smokey and the Bandit in which Reynolds portrays legendary truck driver Bo “Bandit” Darville, with Jerry Reed playing Reynolds’ sidekick Snowman and Jackie Gleason playing Sheriff Buford T. Justice.
The six Mobil 1 ads will feature Darrell Waltrip as Snowman and Jeff Hammond as Justice. Ricky Craven plays Big Enos, Hermie Sadler is Lil’ Enos and Nicole Briscoe is Frog.
“They asked me what my favorite movie was just in casual conversation one day,” Stewart said. “I said Smokey and the Bandit. Didn’t hear anything else about it, and then they came back to me with this.”
Stewart said he isn’t concerned with how the ads are received.
“We had fun doing it,” Stewart said this week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “If they don’t like it, they can kiss our a**.”
Quote of the day
“You can’t control crazy. That’s why they’re crazy.” Hawaii basketball Coach Gib Arnold, after being confronted by a fan on the court
Sports, Pages 22 on 03/09/2014