Jason Jimenez was one of the 30 percent of those baseball pitchers who just don’t recover from Tommy John surgery. The former Elk Grove High School hurler had a promising career going with both the Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Tigers before an injury hit in 2002.
The surgery that replaces a tendon in the throwing arm, a procedure named after the Major Leaguer who revived his pitching career afterwards, typically gives a pitcher a few more good seasons. That didn’t happen, though, for Jimenez. He returned to Elk Grove in 2004, joined the police department and then started coaching the pitchers at Elk Grove High School. Read more.