Labrum, It Nearly Killed Him
Why the torn labrum is baseball's most fearsome injury.
By Will Carroll
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 5:02 PM ET
Nen: sidelined by a bum shoulder
Nen: sidelined by a bum shoulder
The San Francisco Giants' Robb Nen, one of the best relief pitchers in baseball, had off-season surgery in 2002 to "clean up loose particles" in his shoulder. What Nen didn't know is that he had a torn labrum, the fearsome modern baseball injury that strikes down pitchers quickly, stealthily, and painfully. Eighteen months and three surgeries later, Nen is still waiting to throw his next major-league pitch. The leading minds in baseball medicine are flummoxed by the labrum. Doctors can't agree on how to detect a tear, don't know the best way to fix one, and aren't sure why, almost without fail, a torn labrum will destroy a pitcher's career.
Leading baseball surgeon Dr. James Andrews estimates that 85 percent of pitchers make a full recovery after an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, aka the once risky Tommy John surgery. (USA Today has even called the surgery the "pitcher's best friend.") But if pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they'd be destroyed. Of the 36 major-league hurlers diagnosed with labrum tears in the last five years, only midlevel reliever Rocky Biddle has returned to his previous level. Think about that when your favorite pitcher comes down with labrum trouble: He has a 3 percent chance of becoming Rocky Biddle. More likely, he'll turn into Mike Harkey, Robert Person, or Jim Parque, pitchers who lost stamina and velocity?and a major-league career?when their labrums began to fray.
SlateNen's career ended last offseason. He never again even pitched in as much as a simulated game. So it's now 1 out of 37.
Nate Bump, a Marlins relief pitcher, is coming back this year from a torn labrum. Fortunately for Bump, he couldn't get any worse.
