Tommy John has endured the dreaded wait many times since debuting on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in 1995.
The former Dodgers southpaw — the first player to undergo what’s now known as Tommy John surgery — remained eligible until 2009 but never received more than 31.7% of the 75% required for election. John then shuffled through the expansion era and modern baseball ballots twice apiece, getting spurned by the voting committees.
On Sunday at 4:30 p.m., John will learn the latest result after another vote.
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“If I had a say, I would vote me in,” John said Friday in a phone interview from his Florida home. “But I don’t.”
John, along with Steve Garvey — a former Dodgers first baseman and the 1974 National League most valuable player — are two of the eight candidates on the Classic Baseball Era ballot, which helps get overlooked players of past generations elected. John and Garvey donned Dodger blue together from 1972 to 1978.
The Historical Overview Committee, appointed by the Baseball Writers of America Assn., compiles the Classic Baseball Era ballot from players whose biggest achievements happened before 1980. Eligible players must have played 10 or more seasons.
Dr. Frank Jobe first performed the left-hander’s elbow surgery on John in 1974, birthing the ligament-replacement procedure commonplace today. The Hall of Fame honored Jobe and John together during its 2013 induction ceremony.
“I had the right doctor at the right time and I was in the right place,” John said. “I pitched and never missed a start after I came back.”
While the now 81-year-old may be best known for the surgery, John spent 26 seasons in the majors, which tied a record until Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan reached his 27th season. John, a four-time All-Star, tallied a 288-231 record with a 3.34 earned-run average, 2,245 strikeouts and 61.6 wins above replacement (WAR), according to Baseball Reference, with some of his best seasons coming at Chavez Ravine.
“Twenty-six years, 288 wins and [an MLB-record] 188 no decisions,” John said when asked how the committee should value career longevity. “Your arm was in good shape, and you must be doing something right or you wouldn’t be going out there every five days.”
Where John may struggle with voters, as he has in years past, is with strikeouts and wins above replacement — lagging behind most previous pitching inductees from his era.
Jay Jaffe, the author of “The Cooperstown Casebook,” said the 3,000-strikeout mark often is linked with the 300-win milestone, making John’s candidacy less likely considering he has neither.
“Maybe there’s part of that rests on, how much credit does Tommy John deserve versus Dr. Frank Jobe?” said Jaffe, who’s written about the Hall of Fame since 2001 and is a senior baseball writer at FanGraphs. “The guy who actually had the technical expertise and the imagination to pull off the surgery.”
Jaffe added that while he’s leaning toward John being denied election, he hopes if John gets elected, it’s while he’s still alive to participate in the induction ceremony.
“I’ve marinated the arguments for 20-plus years,” Jaffe said. “I would rather he get in while he’s still here.
On the other hand, Garvey is closer to a certain no, Jaffe said.
Garvey, who most recently lost his run for a U.S. Senate seat, was a 10-time All-Star who hit .294 and 272 home runs across 19 seasons. He was a 1981 World Series champion and played in the storied infield alongside Ron Cey, Davey Lopes and Bill Russell from 1973 to 1981.
“There’s a real junk position with how Garvey was valued traditionally in his day and how we see him now,” said Jaffe, who invented JAWS, a widely-used wins above replacement metric for evaluating Hall of Fame worthiness. “Having looked at dozens and dozens of other very good first basemen who followed in this wake that were more valuable … I’m kind of dismissive of him as a candidate.”
If it was up to John, however, he’d like to see himself and his former teammate enshrined in Cooperstown come Sunday.
“He was an excellent teammate,” John said of Garvey. “That would be fine by me.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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