An All-Star Team

For Major Leaguers and Weekend Athletes Alike, HJD’s Sports Medicine Specialists Provide Championship Care

Pitcher Michael Giaramita shows off his newly repaired elbow with his surgeon, Dr. Laith Jazrawi, a former varsity catcher.

One July afternoon in 2008, Michael Giaramita cursed the baseball gods. The 6'4'' 20-year-old right-handed pitcher, a Staten Island native who had just signed a letter of intent to attend Oklahoma Baptist University, was in the ninth inning of a game when he felt "an incredible stabbing pain in my right elbow right after I heard it snap."

Four weeks and three physicians later, Giaramita met Laith Jazrawi, MD, newly appointed chief of the Division of Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Hospital for Joint Diseases (HJD). Suddenly, he felt blessed. The division’s multidisciplinary team includes some of the top orthopaedists in the country, as well as physical therapists and other specialists who primarily treat weekend warriors. "Elite athletes make up about 5% of our patients," says Dr. Jazrawi, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery.

"Dr. J made me feel comfortable right away," says Giaramita. "He was very confident, very straightforward. He also knew what ballplayers go through, having been one himself." Dr. Jazrawi was an all-city catcher at Brooklyn’s Poly Prep in 1987 and started on the Bucknell University varsity team for two years. "I had a pretty good arm and worked well with pitchers," he recalls, "but I never hit more than .275."

During Giaramita’s initial consultation, the two most important words the doctor had for his patient were "Tommy John." For the past 35 years, athletes have heard them with dread and relief. Thomas Edward John, Jr., was a left-handed pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers when his elbow snapped. In those days, any damage to the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) was a career ender. But in 1974, Dr. Frank Jobe made sports medicine history by replacing the ligament in John’s pitching elbow with a tendon from his right forearm. "Tommy John" became shorthand for this pioneering procedure that gives new life to pitchers, who are most prone to this type of injury because of the abnormal stress they put on the UCL. John went on to play until 1989, winning 164 games after his surgery.

Michael Giaramita dreaded the 12 to 18 months of recovery time. But he was heartened to hear Dr. Jazrawi explain that about 85 to 90% of his patients return to close to where they were before surgery, though just about every pitcher loses one to two miles per hour from his fastball.

"Not me," declares Giaramita. "I intend to do better with improved mechanics." Ten days after surgery, he flew back to school with a list of rehab protocols. "I didn’t throw for four months, and I approached rehab like a nine-to-five job. I did conditioning, weight, and martial arts training six days a week. Sunday was my only day off."

Giaramita’s ultimate goal is to reach the majors. There is still one major obstacle, however, that must be overcome before such fantasies can be entertained: a 10-inch-high dirt mound about 18 feet in diameter, located 60'6'' from home plate on a practice field in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

As Michael Giaramita toes the rubber on a pitching mound for the first time since the injury, his elbow feels fine. Though he’s only facing the junior varsity squad in a fall scrimmage, his stomach is filled with butterflies. His first pitch is a fastball, right down the middle. The good news: no pain. The bad: a screaming line drive into left field for a double.

All athletes learn to make adjustments, and Giaramita does just that, not giving up another hit for the rest of the game. When he walks off the mound after recording the final out, he tips his cap to the applause of his coaches and teammates. And to the baseball gods? "Well, yeah, and to my trainer and therapist. But mostly to my surgeon, Dr. J, who made this day possible."

For more information or to make an appointment, call 212-598-6784.