Dr. Lewis A. Yocum, one of baseball’s most renowned orthopedic surgeons, who saved the careers of the Washington Nationals’ young pitching stars Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann and numerous other major leaguers, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif. He was 65.
The cause was liver cancer, said the Los Angeles Angels, for whom Dr. Yocum had been the team orthopedist for 36 years.
Dr. Yocum’s mentor, Dr. Frank Jobe, developed the elbow ligament replacement procedure known as Tommy John surgery. Together with Dr. James Andrews of Birmingham, Ala., the three were known as the surgeons of choice for players with elbow, shoulder or knee injuries.
“He could probably do the Tommy John surgery better than I could,” Dr. Jobe told Major League Baseball’s Web site upon Dr. Yocum’s death. Dr. Jobe recalled how Dr. Yocum developed a more effective way of stringing sutures for the surgery, cutting the patient’s time under anesthesia by 15 minutes or so.
Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, called Dr. Yocum “a giant of sports medicine.”
Dr. Yocum, a native of Chicago, received his bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University in 1969 and his medical degree from the University of Illinois in 1973. He completed his internship and residency at the McGaw Medical Center at Northwestern University.
He began his association with the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles in 1977. The clinic was founded by Dr. Robert Kerlan and Dr. Jobe, the former orthopedist for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Dr. Yocum was on the clinic’s staff at his death.
When the Dodger left-hander Tommy John damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in the summer of 1974, Dr. Jobe performed a groundbreaking procedure in which he took a tendon from John’s wrist, then drilled holes in his damaged elbow and wove the tendon through them. During John’s long rehabilitation process, the tendon began to function as the damaged ligament had. John went on to become a Yankee mainstay and pitched until 1989.
Besides Strasburg and Zimmermann, Dr. Yocum performed elbow surgery on Billy Wagner, C. J. Wilson and Francisco Liriano, among other pitchers.
Strasburg’s fastball and crackling curve turned him into a phenom in his rookie season of 2010, but he developed elbow trouble, and Dr. Yocum operated on him that September. Strasburg returned to the mound in September 2011, then had a 15-6 record last season while limited by the Nationals to 160 innings.
To Strasburg’s dismay, the Nationals shut him down in early September 2012 after he had pitched 1591/3 innings. He was not available when the Nationals lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League division series last fall. Dr. Yocum said at the time that he supported the team’s decision and was “comfortable that my medical advice was responsibly considered.”
Strasburg and Zimmermann, who was operated on by Dr. Yocum in his rookie season of 2009, are viewed as likely to help keep the Nationals in pennant races for years to come. “He saved my career,” Zimmermann told The Washington Post.
Dr. Yocum is survived by his wife, Beth; a son, Donald; and a daughter, Laura, the Angels said.
Dr. Yocum treated patients from all walks of life and was a consultant to dance groups.
“I asked him repeatedly what his favorite thing as a doctor was,” Rick Smith, an Angels trainer, told MLB.com. “He said: ‘I love surgery. I love to fix things.’ ”
But there were times when he told a player he did not need an operation. Darren O’Day visited Dr. Yocum when he tore the labrum in his pitching shoulder as a rookie reliever with the Angels in 2008.
“He was very honest about my prognosis and made a pretty good call, saying I shouldn’t get surgery, just do my rehab,” O’Day told The Baltimore Sun.
O’Day is a top reliever for the Orioles, and, he said, “I am still pitching with that torn labrum.”
