Reddit mentions of The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports

There's a horrible misconception that Tommy John surgery resets the odometer on your UCL, or even makes it stronger. Because of this a few misinformed people believe having it done on a high school or college pitcher will get it out of the way before they get into their college/professional years, and send them into those prime developmental and earning seasons at a lower risk of needing Tommy John. This isn't true.

The UCL connects the upper and lower parts of the arm at the elbow. The most common version of the surgery involves taking a tendon from elsewhere in the body (often the leg), or a cadaver, and replacing the frayed or torn UCL in the elbow. New holes have to be drilled into the humerus (upper arm) and ulna (lower arm) bones for the replacement tendon to be attached. There's a nerve in there too that has to be carefully moved so it doesn't bump up against scar tissue that will form and cause extreme pain.

While the success rate has improved from the early days of the surgery, it still isn't 100%. When "full" recovery happens, it still takes over a year from the time of the surgery for baseball pitchers. Still: The donor tendon isn't as strong as the original, and the bone isn't as strong where you had to drill more holes into it to accommodate the replacement ligament. Many pitchers don't come back with full arm strength, and the increasing prevalence in baseball over the past 10-20 years has taught us that the risk of reinjury is higher once you've gone under the knife a first time. Think ACLs in football.

Bottom line: You never want to have Tommy John surgery. And doctors who would perform it electively on children should be sued for malpractice.

(My knowledge of this comes from Jeff Passan's excellent book The Arm)

That's a broad topic. Let's see:

• Recent, still relevant baseball: The Arm by Jeff Passan. One of the best sportswriters today goes way in-depth to what's going on with pitching injuries. Fascinating read.
  
  
• Historical / Classic Reads: Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers in Jackie's day. Kahn's a wonderful storyteller.
  
  
• Weird, but wonderful: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about the fictional Patriot League. One of these days, I want to run an OOTP sim of the league and see what happens. Completely out there, but I loved it.
  
  
• Edit: Almost forgot! The Kid Who Only Hit Homers, by Matt Christopher. First baseball book I ever read.