Latest news with #Meister
New York Post
10-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump advisory board member wants Jan. 6 to be a national holiday: ‘Will look like July 4'
Jan. 6 should be a national holiday, one Trump advisory board member declared, guaranteeing that in 10 years 'it will look like July 4.' The push to create a new US holiday 'has been on my mind for four years, I just didn't have the chutzpah to talk about it,' Jason Meister, 43, told The Post. 'That would be the biggest way to honor these American heroes who risked their lives, freedom and honor to protest what they perceived to be a stolen election.' 3 Jason Meister wants January 6 to be a national holiday. Jason Meister/ Instagram The former Trump surrogate, who sits on the Trump 2020 Advisory Board, is also pushing for J6 'political prisoners' to sing the National Anthem at the 2027 NFL Draft, which is set to take place at the National Mall. The New Jersey lawyer, who was in the Big Apple when protestors stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, plans to raise the issue with Trump the next chance he gets. Meister also hopes to see the J6ers memorialized in Trump's 'National Garden of American Heroes' monument, which is scheduled to open in time for the US' 250th birthday on July 4, 2026. 3 Meister is also pushing for Jan. 6 'political prisoners' to sing at the draft. Newsmax 2 'The elites weaponized J6 to crush dissent. These men and women have lost everything – jobs, families, their very liberty – for refusing to kneel,' said Meister, who blasted the 'hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars' used to 'investigate, prosecute, and imprison more than 1000 Americans' who were exercising their First Amendment rights 'without due process.' 3 Meister wants Jan. 6 to be known as 'Patriot's Day' Getty Images Bring out the barbeque and fireworks, said the fired-up MAGA man. 'J6 must be celebrated and forever known as Patriot's Day,' he said. 'American citizens exercised their right of assembly and redress. All of these Americans were unarmed. 'In response, the regime murdered a woman who was protesting and sent thousands more to federal prison without fair trial.' The family of Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed US veteran who was shot to death by a federal officer on Jan. 6, settled a $30 million wrongful death suit earlier this month with the DOJ. 'We talk about due process for illegal gangbangers who beat their wives,' fumed Meister. 'I want to celebrate these heroes who sacrificed it all to protect our democracy.'
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
How much precipitation did the May storm bring to Southern Colorado?
(COLORADO SPRINGS) — May showers bring May flowers? Moisture made its appearance in Colorado on Monday, May 5, and while it was much-needed, the system will finally conclude on Wednesday evening, May 7. Snow and rain impacted various parts of Southern Colorado, with most of the precipitation impacting the area on Tuesday. 'We forecast a widespread 1.5″ to 3″ of liquid, with this storm,' said Matt Meister, FOX21 Storm Team Chief Meteorologist. 'We also thought a few spots right up against the mountains could get between 3″ and 5″. We nailed it.' The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, released on May 1, showed that areas in Southern Colorado were facing drought conditions. This May storm had the chance to help, and even erase some of the drought conditions that surfaced in Southern Colorado after the winter months. 'We've seen drought conditions develop over parts of the region through the winter,' said Meister. 'This probably erases the drought in most cases.' The latest snow totals across the region show that various areas west obtained the bulk of precipitation, with Victor getting more than a foot of snow. Parts in Southwestern Colorado are still under a Winter Storm Warning or Winter Weather Advisory until noon on Wednesday. The Pikes Peak area also received quite a bit of snow, with Pikes Peak – America's Mountain forecasting between 47-52 inches of snow between Tuesday and Wednesday. Viewers across the area shared a few pictures with FOX21 News, showing off how much precipitation their area had received. 'The nice thing about this storm is the water was able to soak into the ground,' added Meister. 'It fell over an extended period of time versus a quick 20 to 40-minute dump like we sometimes get from seasonal thunderstorms.' According to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS), accumulated precipitation was also the highest in the western area, with Manitou Springs and areas of Cañon City accumulating more than 3 inches. While the bulk of the rain and snow has passed, cities are cautioning individuals about flooding due to the prolonged rainfall. Manitou Springs, which has retained the most rainfall in the Pikes Peak region, reported that due to high turbidity readings, it had paused operations at the water treatment plant and switched to a second water storage tank to continue providing safe and reliable water. After Wednesday, though, the weather improves for Southern Colorado, with 70s and sunshine on tap for the weekend. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado.
CBC
09-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
Summerside ice cream parlour caught in 'sophisticated' scam costing over $5,000
The owner of Holman's Ice Cream Parlour in Summerside is warning other Prince Edward Island businesses to beware after he was the victim of an elaborate scam. It all started in December, when Daniel Meister reached out to his regular cup supplier for an order of ice-cream sundae dishes. "They sent me a quote. At the time I was doing some renovations on the parlour… so I kinda just said, 'Let's leave it until we reopen again for our season in February and we'll revisit it.'" When February came around, Meister got a follow-up email. He was on vacation at the time, but everything looked normal, so he "quickly replied to that email and said, 'Yep, we're good. I'm ready to process this. I'll do this as soon as I get back.'" The scammer sent Meister a few more emails while he was on vacation, one of them being an invoice. "Everything about the invoice looked identical to the one I'd received, except for the banking information at the bottom had been edited." Meister said there were a few red flags that he should have noticed, such as the edited banking information, and the fact that the invoice came from a different email address than the one he had been using for that supplier. But he didn't. "When you're running a business, there's so many things on your brain. I kind of just ran to the bank," he said. At the bank, Meister wired just over $5,000 to the altered email address without a second thought. A few days later, he got another email saying the money had not arrived. "That's weird, the money left my account," he remembers thinking. After emails back and forth between the scammer and the bank, Meister said the scammer kept pressuring him to send more money, even offering discounts. That's when he started to get "an icky feeling," he said. I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple people managing this scam email account. — Daniel Meister "There started to be some inconsistencies in their messages. I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple people managing this scam email account," he said. "Some details... didn't make sense." When Meister realized he was talking with an email scam, he replied to that address and copied his supplier on the using, using its actual email address from his files. "My original contact for this company got back to me almost immediately and was like 'Daniel, this isn't me contacting you.'" Famous P.E.I. chef raising alarms after his image — and voice — used in online scam 12 months ago Duration 5:25 A deepfake video of P.E.I. chef Michael Smith generated by artificial intelligence pitches an offer of free cookware in return for people's credit card details — and Smith is angered by Facebook's lack of response to his complaints about it. He spoke with CBC's Steve Bruce about the scam. No way to recover money Meister contacted his bank and the police to file a report, but it was too late. "Unfortunately, once the money has been sent, there's very little that they can do to recover it," he said. "These scammers are very good at taking the money and moving it around and they know how to hide it. "My theory is that they were able to access the email of my contact in the company that we use. What I believe happened is they set up some sort of forwarding in the email address so when I sent an email to my contact, the email would then be forwarded to them." He thinks this because the scammer was aware of details included in the chats between Meister and his actual contact at the supplier, and would refer to them in messages to Meister. He also suspects the culprit was potentially using artificial intelligence, or AI, to mimic his contact. "A lot of the language was matched that they used. I'm curious if they used AI to try and match the tone and messaging," he said. "The scammers were very professional. They were very understanding. They acted like they were my friend trying to work with me to get this problem solved." Police believe AI voice cloning used to scam seniors 2 years ago Duration 2:08 Police in Newfoundland say they believe scammers used voice-cloning technology to trick seniors into believing their actual grandchildren were calling them for help, leaving them swindled out of thousands of dollars. Meister said there is a level of embarrassment when it comes to falling victim to a scam, but he wanted to share his story to help prevent others from being defrauded like this. So he put a long post about the incident on the ice cream parlour's Facebook page, titled "I Got Scammed – Please Learn From My Mistake." The post included these tips, after Meister urged other businesses to "please be smarter than I was": Always verify any changes to payment info or communication methods. Pick up the phone or use another method to confirm if something feels even a little off. Don't rush payments, even if you're swamped. "I just wanted to break the stigma a little bit," he told CBC News in an interview.
USA Today
26-03-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Tommy John surgery at a turning point: 'Seat belt' gives hope to MLB's repeat patients
Tommy John surgery at a turning point: 'Seat belt' gives hope to MLB's repeat patients Baseball's infamous elbow surgery is a necessary evil – but surgeons and patients are optimistic about the future. Show Caption Hide Caption Gunnar Henderson talks all things Baltimore Orioles and the upcoming MLB season Gunnar Henderson stops by to talk about the upcoming season with the Orioles and being on the cover of MLB The Show 25. Sports Seriously In another timeline, they'd likely be former Cy Young Award winners, MVPs and strikeout champions pining for what was. World Series champions at one time, shells of themselves in the present. This spring, though, a handful of elite pitchers will see the radar gun light up as they once expected, a batter overmatched and returning to the dugout, and faith in modern medicine greatly reinforced. It used to be pitchers undergoing a second repair of their elbow's ulnar collateral ligament faced something of a professional death sentence, that multiple Tommy John surgeries meant hanging on, not dominating. Yet evidence is increasing that the internal brace procedure, pioneered by orthopedist Jeffrey Dugas and accelerated by Keith Meister, the Dallas-based surgeon to the stars, is not simply shoring up careers but potentially returning pitchers back to their profession's apex. 'Ultimately, I know if this were 20 years ago, I wouldn't have had this surgery and would probably be a lot different pitcher,' Spencer Strider, the Atlanta Braves ace who had his second elbow reconstruction in April 2024, told USA TODAY Sports this spring. 'I'm grateful Dr. Meister and everyone else in the industry are doing the work they're doing.' Strider pitched in an exhibition game last week, just more than 11 months after Meister repaired a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament and installed an internal brace. His showing strongly suggested he remains anything but ordinary on the mound. The man who struck out more batters – 483 - in Major League Baseball in 2022-23 cracked 98 mph on the radar gun and struck out six of the eight Boston Red Sox he faced, including five in a row, and could soon begin a rehab assignment and be back on the mound for the Braves within several weeks. This weekend, Walker Buehler will take the mound for the Boston Red Sox, who were confident enough to pay Buehler $21 million this year in his latest step from a second reconstruction and internal brace insertion in August 2022. Even as they expect to temper his innings as he approaches his 37th birthday, the Texas Rangers are thrilled two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom will make his first turn through their rotation, two years after his procedure with Meister ensured their $180 million investment in him may not be for naught. And sometime after Strider pitches in a real game, the Dodgers should be welcoming back to the mound Shohei Ohtani, the two-way player who underwent his second elbow reconstruction in five years in 2023. Make no mistake: Results aren't guaranteed, no outcome preordained, as we learned Saturday when Shane McClanahan, the Tampa Bay Rays' opening day starter and a two-time Tommy John patient, suffered a triceps injury just days before he was to throw their first pitch of 2025. So it goes for pitchers, who must sidestep dozens of potential maladies even as the constant monster under the bed – a failure of their elbow's ulnar collateral ligament, and the likely reconstructive surgery to follow – lurks. Yet it's been seven years since Meister deployed the hybrid reconstruction on a patient, creating a personal sample size that now numbers around 500. In that group, nearly 150 underwent their second or even third Tommy John surgery or repair. The results are still preliminary, but also highly encouraging. 'Of the revisions – meaning second and potentially third Tommy Johns where we put a tendon graft in and a brace – we actually have not had a single ligament re-tear. Which is incredible,' Meister tells USA TODAY Sports. 'They failed in other ways – a couple flexor tendon tears, other things that have broken down. But the weak link in the chain, and I don't think it is any longer, is the ligament itself. I think we've moved the needle. 'Now, time is going to make fools of all of us, as we all know. I don't want to oversell this and say we have a perfect solution to anything. But it's moved the needle in a positive direction with our second – and in some cases third –Tommy John recipients.' And any positive step forward comes at a time elbow failures, in an era where pitchers thirst for unprecedented pitch velocity and movement, remain the game's greatest scourge. A second chance – and then a second surgery Throughout organized baseball, from the travel ball circuits to the stadiums with three decks, there are thousands of athletes, almost all pitchers, whose first Tommy John surgery gave them another shot. In 2023, 35.3% of major league pitchers had undergone Tommy John surgery, a 29% increase from 2016. With a success rate of around 90%, and roughly 80% of pitchers reaching their prior performance level, the surgery could reliably ensure roughly a decade of elbow health. Not any longer. 'In 13 years as a GM,' says Braves executive vice president Alex Anthopoulos, 'this is just anecdotal. But they don't seem to last as long.' He's not wrong. Anthopoulos' club drafted Strider in 2020, when he was still on the way back from 2019 surgery as a Clemson sophomore. Five years later, he was back for another repair. Ohtani underwent his first Tommy John on Oct. 1, 2018. His second came almost exactly five years later. Buehler went under the knife in August 2015, shortly after the Dodgers drafted him out of Vanderbilt. It lasted him until June 2022. When New York Mets pitcher Drew Smith first had the procedure in 2019, he was told it should be good for seven to 10 years. Last July, he was back in the operating room. 'It was shocking for it to only last five years,' says Smith, whom the Mets re-signed to a two-year minor league contract, with hopes he can pitch for them in 2026. For Meister, that shock has long worn off when he sees old patients back for another round. The connection between hard throwers and elbow trouble is relatively well-established, even if UCLs can fail for innumerable reasons. Yet in an era where pitchers are able to manipulate baseballs in manners previously unimaginable, it is the stuff – the turbo sinkers that near 100 mph and the power changeups and beguiling sweepers with a foot and a half of horizontal run – that makes Meister shake his head. 'There's absolutely zero question in my mind this is a consequence of velocity and probably even moreso for me now, spin," says Meister. 'What they have to do is squeeze the ball so hard to be able to create that type of spin and ball movement that it puts this undue load on the medial side, the inner side of the elbow, that I think is contributing in a great way to this spike in injuries. 'We have to make changes. Unfortunately, there's been no real motivation in Major League Baseball to make these changes.' Meister needs no peer-reviewed study on that point. 'As easily fixable you can make (elbow injuries), the better,' says Buehler, who played key roles in the Dodgers' World Series championships in 2020 and 2024. 'But at the end of the day we're all trying to throw hard and get people out and there's risks that come with that. And if you're not willing to take that risk, you probably won't get here the way you want.' Says Strider: 'Now we've got to start looking into our daily behavior. Not philosophy, not velocity – that's not going away, nor should we want it to. 'But how do we manage workload, how can we be smarter, how can we utilize feedback, both visual and data-driven, to be healthier. That takes time to conduct those experiments and feel good about that process.' For now, the operating room is the safety net. 'Turning point' Buehler, 21 at the time of his first Tommy John recovery, called the recovery 'easy breezy" and came back throwing harder than before. He says his second rehab was 'a little more of a struggle,' in part because other injuries – including a mild shoulder malady that upended his chances to return in 2023 – set him back. He's also a prime example of the pre-surgery uncertainty before doctors get an internal view of the elbow. Buehler, whose surgery was performed by Los Angeles orthopedist Neal ElAttrache, required both an additional ligament replacement and a flexor tendon repair. ElAttrache also installed the internal brace. That verdict – be it a new UCL, a repair or revision of the old one, and any other unforeseen damage – will frame how long second-time Tommy John patients must sit out. Strider may make it back within just more than 12 months, since he required only a revision. Preserving a compromised ligament, rather than replacing it, is a game-changer for pitcher recovery. 'They told me my graft was coming out of the anchor in a very similar spot to my first reconstruction,' says Baltimore Orioles right-hander Tyler Wells, who underwent a revision of his original Tommy John surgery in June and hopes for a midseason return this year. 'My UCL, in a sense, was torn, but it was creating some laxity because it was starting to pull out of the graft. 'They needed to go in there and reattach everything to it, but in that process decided they were going to add the internal brace for additional support. I don't have to go through the same process of ligamentization, where they're putting in the new graft and get it all stretched out. Mine's already like that. That, in turn, makes this kind of rehab a little bit easier than doing the second, full reconstruction.' And now, Wells' UCL has a brace, which Meister says acts 'as a seat belt, so to speak, on the inner side of the elbow. But I also think there's probably a biologic component to it. I think it's, maybe, enhancing the healing response.' McClanahan hadn't yet begun his collegiate career at South Florida when he underwent Tommy John surgery. Now, a decade and two All-Star appearances later, he's startled at the advancements in surgery and rehab. 'I was 17 when I had my first one. I'm 27 now," he says. 'I was a kid when it happened. It felt like a different lifetime ago. I feel good, and that's what matters to me.' Wells, whose mother is a doctor, agrees. He's had enough conversations with Meister, physical therapists and other medical personnel to recognize the evolution has reached a key stage. 'It seems like this is a really big turning point in Tommy John reconstructions or revisions,' he says. 'There's definitely huge progress. That will stabilize a little bit. And eventually you see that next go-round where you take another turn for the better.' Until then, there will be frustrating steps backward between the progress. McClanahan provided a scare Saturday, when he threw a pitch, hopped in pain and walked off the mound in his final Grapefruit League start. Turns out it was a triceps, not an elbow injury. So it goes for pitchers who might throw up to 3,000 pitches this coming season – along with the orthopedists who mend them when their most important ligament fails. Meister is often joined by other surgeons in his operating room, from as far away as South Korea and Japan, as the industry collaborates to produce something resembling a permanent fix. And after surgery, rehab and the athlete's climb back to active duty, his lab becomes the thousands of mounds across the sport. For all the advancements that help patients light up a radar gun no matter how many times their elbow has blown, progress, for him, will look like a lunch break uninterrupted by a phone call with another arm needing an MRI, or a waiting room not bursting with return clients. 'Let's get through a season and I can start to feel better about it,' he says. 'Look, it's exciting stuff. On the one hand, I am excited to watch it. 'On the other hand, I'm on pins and needles.' The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
USA Today
26-03-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Tommy John surgery at a turning point: 'Seatbelt' gives hope to MLB's repeat patients
Tommy John surgery at a turning point: 'Seatbelt' gives hope to MLB's repeat patients Baseball's infamous elbow surgery is a necessary evil – but surgeons and patients are optimistic about the future. Show Caption Hide Caption Gunnar Henderson talks all things Baltimore Orioles and the upcoming MLB season Gunnar Henderson stops by to talk about the upcoming season with the Orioles and being on the cover of MLB The Show 25. Sports Seriously In another timeline, they'd likely be former Cy Young Award winners, MVPs and strikeout champions pining for what was. World Series champions at one time, shells of themselves in the present. This spring, though, a handful of elite pitchers will see the radar gun light up as they once expected, a batter overmatched and returning to the dugout, and faith in modern medicine greatly reinforced. It used to be pitchers undergoing a second repair of their elbow's ulnar collateral ligament faced something of a professional death sentence, that multiple Tommy John surgeries meant hanging on, not dominating. Yet evidence is increasing that the internal brace procedure, pioneered by orthopedist Jeffrey Dugas and accelerated by Keith Meister, the Dallas-based surgeon to the stars, is not simply shoring up careers but potentially returning pitchers back to their profession's apex. 'Ultimately, I know if this were 20 years ago, I wouldn't have had this surgery and would probably be a lot different pitcher,' Spencer Strider, the Atlanta Braves ace who had his second elbow reconstruction in April 2024, told USA TODAY Sports this spring. 'I'm grateful Dr. Meister and everyone else in the industry are doing the work they're doing.' Strider pitched in an exhibition game last week, just more than 11 months after Meister repaired a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament and installed an internal brace. His showing strongly suggested he remains anything but ordinary on the mound. The man who struck out more batters – 483 - in Major League Baseball in 2022-23 cracked 98 mph on the radar gun and struck out six of the eight Boston Red Sox he faced, including five in a row, and could soon begin a rehab assignment and be back on the mound for the Braves within several weeks. This weekend, Walker Buehler will take the mound for the Boston Red Sox, who were confident enough to pay Buehler $21 million this year in his latest step from a second reconstruction and internal brace insertion in August 2022. Even as they expect to temper his innings as he approaches his 37th birthday, the Texas Rangers are thrilled two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom will make his first turn through their rotation, two years after his procedure with Meister ensured their $180 million investment in him may not be for naught. And sometime after Strider pitches in a real game, the Dodgers should be welcoming back to the mound Shohei Ohtani, the two-way player who underwent his second elbow reconstruction in five years in 2023. Make no mistake: Results aren't guaranteed, no outcome preordained, as we learned Saturday when Shane McClanahan, the Tampa Bay Rays' opening day starter and a two-time Tommy John patient, suffered a triceps injury just days before he was to throw their first pitch of 2025. So it goes for pitchers, who must sidestep dozens of potential maladies even as the constant monster under the bed – a failure of their elbow's ulnar collateral ligament, and the likely reconstructive surgery to follow – lurks. Yet it's been seven years since Meister deployed the hybrid reconstruction on a patient, creating a personal sample size that now numbers around 500. In that group, nearly 150 underwent their second or even third Tommy John surgery or repair. The results are still preliminary, but also highly encouraging. 'Of the revisions – meaning second and potentially third Tommy Johns where we put a tendon graft in and a brace – we actually have not had a single ligament re-tear. Which is incredible,' Meister tells USA TODAY Sports. 'They failed in other ways – a couple flexor tendon tears, other things that have broken down. But the weak link in the chain, and I don't think it is any longer, is the ligament itself. I think we've moved the needle. 'Now, time is going to make fools of all of us, as we all know. I don't want to oversell this and say we have a perfect solution to anything. But it's moved the needle in a positive direction with our second – and in some cases third –Tommy John recipients.' And any positive step forward comes at a time elbow failures, in an era where pitchers thirst for unprecedented pitch velocity and movement, remain the game's greatest scourge. A second chance – and then a second surgery Throughout organized baseball, from the travel ball circuits to the stadiums with three decks, there are thousands of athletes, almost all pitchers, whose first Tommy John surgery gave them another shot. In 2023, 35.3% of major league pitchers had undergone Tommy John surgery, a 29% increase from 2016. With a success rate of around 90%, and roughly 80% of pitchers reaching their prior performance level, the surgery could reliably ensure roughly a decade of elbow health. Not any longer. 'In 13 years as a GM,' says Braves executive vice president Alex Anthopoulos, 'this is just anecdotal. But they don't seem to last as long.' He's not wrong. Anthopoulos' club drafted Strider in 2020, when he was still on the way back from 2019 surgery as a Clemson sophomore. Five years later, he was back for another repair. Ohtani underwent his first Tommy John on Oct. 1, 2018. His second came almost exactly five years later. Buehler went under the knife in August 2015, shortly after the Dodgers drafted him out of Vanderbilt. It lasted him until June 2022. When New York Mets pitcher Drew Smith first had the procedure in 2019, he was told it should be good for seven to 10 years. Last July, he was back in the operating room. 'It was shocking for it to only last five years,' says Smith, whom the Mets re-signed to a two-year minor league contract, with hopes he can pitch for them in 2026. For Meister, that shock has long worn off when he sees old patients back for another round. The connection between hard throwers and elbow trouble is relatively well-established, even if UCLs can fail for innumerable reasons. Yet in an era where pitchers are able to manipulate baseballs in manners previously unimaginable, it is the stuff – the turbo sinkers that near 100 mph and the power changeups and beguiling sweepers with a foot and a half of horizontal run – that makes Meister shake his head. 'There's absolutely zero question in my mind this is a consequence of velocity and probably even moreso for me now, spin," says Meister. 'What they have to do is squeeze the ball so hard to be able to create that type of spin and ball movement that it puts this undue load on the medial side, the inner side of the elbow, that I think is contributing in a great way to this spike in injuries. 'We have to make changes. Unfortunately, there's been no real motivation in Major League Baseball to make these changes.' Meister needs no peer-reviewed study on that point. 'As easily fixable you can make (elbow injuries), the better,' says Buehler, who played key roles in the Dodgers' World Series championships in 2020 and 2024. 'But at the end of the day we're all trying to throw hard and get people out and there's risks that come with that. And if you're not willing to take that risk, you probably won't get here the way you want.' Says Strider: 'Now we've got to start looking into our daily behavior. Not philosophy, not velocity – that's not going away, nor should we want it to. 'But how do we manage workload, how can we be smarter, how can we utilize feedback, both visual and data-driven, to be healthier. That takes time to conduct those experiments and feel good about that process.' For now, the operating room is the safety net. 'Turning point' Buehler, 21 at the time of his first Tommy John recovery, called the recovery 'easy breezy" and came back throwing harder than before. He says his second rehab was 'a little more of a struggle,' in part because other injuries – including a mild shoulder malady that upended his chances to return in 2023 – set him back. He's also a prime example of the pre-surgery uncertainty before doctors get an internal view of the elbow. Buehler, whose surgery was performed by Los Angeles orthopedist Neal ElAttrache, required both an additional ligament replacement and a flexor tendon repair. ElAttrache also installed the internal brace. That verdict – be it a new UCL, a repair or revision of the old one, and any other unforeseen damage – will frame how long second-time Tommy John patients must sit out. Strider may make it back within just more than 12 months, since he required only a revision. Preserving a compromised ligament, rather than replacing it, is a game-changer for pitcher recovery. 'They told me my graft was coming out of the anchor in a very similar spot to my first reconstruction,' says Baltimore Orioles right-hander Tyler Wells, who underwent a revision of his original Tommy John surgery in June and hopes for a midseason return this year. 'My UCL, in a sense, was torn, but it was creating some laxity because it was starting to pull out of the graft. 'They needed to go in there and reattach everything to it, but in that process decided they were going to add the internal brace for additional support. I don't have to go through the same process of ligamentization, where they're putting in the new graft and get it all stretched out. Mine's already like that. That, in turn, makes this kind of rehab a little bit easier than doing the second, full reconstruction.' And now, Wells' UCL has a brace, which Meister says acts 'as a seat belt, so to speak, on the inner side of the elbow. But I also think there's probably a biologic component to it. I think it's, maybe, enhancing the healing response.' McClanahan hadn't yet begun his collegiate career at South Florida when he underwent Tommy John surgery. Now, a decade and two All-Star appearances later, he's startled at the advancements in surgery and rehab. 'I was 17 when I had my first one. I'm 27 now," he says. 'I was a kid when it happened. It felt like a different lifetime ago. I feel good, and that's what matters to me.' Wells, whose mother is a doctor, agrees. He's had enough conversations with Meister, physical therapists and other medical personnel to recognize the evolution has reached a key stage. 'It seems like this is a really big turning point in Tommy John reconstructions or revisions,' he says. 'There's definitely huge progress. That will stabilize a little bit. And eventually you see that next go-round where you take another turn for the better.' Until then, there will be frustrating steps backward between the progress. McClanahan provided a scare Saturday, when he threw a pitch, hopped in pain and walked off the mound in his final Grapefruit League start. Turns out it was a triceps, not an elbow injury. So it goes for pitchers who might throw up to 3,000 pitches this coming season – along with the orthopedists who mend them when their most important ligament fails. Meister is often joined by other surgeons in his operating room, from as far away as South Korea and Japan, as the industry collaborates to produce something resembling a permanent fix. And after surgery, rehab and the athlete's climb back to active duty, his lab becomes the thousands of mounds across the sport. For all the advancements that help patients light up a radar gun no matter how many times their elbow has blown, progress, for him, will look like a lunch break uninterrupted by a phone call with another arm needing an MRI, or a waiting room not bursting with return clients. 'Let's get through a season and I can start to feel better about it,' he says. 'Look, it's exciting stuff. On the one hand, I am excited to watch it. 'On the other hand, I'm on pins and needles.' The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
