injuries. A study at the American Sports Medicine Institute found that kids who had pitched competitively for more than eight months of the year were five times as likely to undergo arm surgery. Another study, published by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, linked warm-weather climates with a higher incidence of Tommy John surgery.
The significant rise in Tommy John cases dovetails with the expansion of Perfect Game in 1998 from an outfit based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to the talent hotbeds of Texas and Florida. Within six years, Perfect Game was holding twenty-five national showcases, and Dr. James Andrewsâs youth and high schoolâaged patients jumped from 4 percent of his UCL reconstruction cases to 26 percent. Andrews now estimates that one-third of his patients are under eighteen, and that doesnât count the hundreds who make an appointment only to be sent home with a rehabilitation protocol. Andrews doesnât call out Perfect Game by name. Next to nobody does. It is a powerful entity, and even top major league officials decline to talk about it on the record. Theyâre all afraid of pissing off Jerry Ford.
In his telling of Perfect Gameâs origin, Ford was nothing more than a parent who wouldâve paid anything to get scouts to see his son. Ben Ford eventually pitched for three major league teams, though it wasnât because people were flocking to Cedar Rapids to see him. Iowa baseball started its high school season around Memorial Day, a week or two before the amateur draft, and the paucity of scouts who showed up to watch the Iowa Wesleyan College teams that Jerry Ford coached convinced him to start a new business. Between a spartan facility he outfitted for baseball players to train in over the winter and a league for them in the spring and fall designed to draw scoutsâ interest, Ford built Perfect Game to conquer Iowa, not the baseball world.
At first, it did neither. The baseball industry subsists on reputation, and Perfect Game meant nothing. Ford bled money. âIf we wouldâve had any brains, we couldâve gone bankrupt at any time and gotten out,â Ford told me. âIâve often told people, had we been in the hardware business or a pizza shop or any other business, weâd have been gone a long time ago. But the thing that kept us going was what we were doing was benefiting a lot of kids. The idea was actually working. We just couldnât figure out how to make any money.â
In the fall of 1999, a Cedar Rapids businessman named Mark HanrahanââIâm the Fred Sanford of the airline surplus business,â he saidâwalked into Perfect Gameâs offices. He was indebted to Jerry Ford, who helped teach Hanrahanâs son Sean to hit for more power. Perfect Game needed a bailout. The gas company wasthreatening to turn off Perfect Gameâs heat. Hanrahan bought a majority share of Perfect Game and funded it through its first growth cycle.
âIâd sit in my office and Iâd write checks for $25,000 and $50,000, and that went on for five years,â Hanrahan said. âI had blind allegiance to Jerry. I will not say that I knew he would make it and do it as well as heâs done, but in baseball he was like nobody Iâd ever met. Jerry Ford is a goddamn genius.â
Ford wasnât just the strategic mind behind bringing elite youth baseball to the masses. He helped set the price for how much peanuts would cost at the games in Iowa. He tapped away on his computer, one finger at a time, to sculpt Perfect Game announcements. He believed that with time the business would turn around.
By the time it did, Hanrahan had sold his share of Perfect Game to a New Jersey man named Jose Rodriguez. Ford was still running the company and wanted it back. âJerry loves the game,â Rodriguez said. âJerry is knowledgeable about the game. He has a lot of great stuff when it comes to the game. Jerry is not
The significant rise in Tommy John cases dovetails with the expansion of Perfect Game in 1998 from an outfit based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to the talent hotbeds of Texas and Florida. Within six years, Perfect Game was holding twenty-five national showcases, and Dr. James Andrewsâs youth and high schoolâaged patients jumped from 4 percent of his UCL reconstruction cases to 26 percent. Andrews now estimates that one-third of his patients are under eighteen, and that doesnât count the hundreds who make an appointment only to be sent home with a rehabilitation protocol. Andrews doesnât call out Perfect Game by name. Next to nobody does. It is a powerful entity, and even top major league officials decline to talk about it on the record. Theyâre all afraid of pissing off Jerry Ford.
In his telling of Perfect Gameâs origin, Ford was nothing more than a parent who wouldâve paid anything to get scouts to see his son. Ben Ford eventually pitched for three major league teams, though it wasnât because people were flocking to Cedar Rapids to see him. Iowa baseball started its high school season around Memorial Day, a week or two before the amateur draft, and the paucity of scouts who showed up to watch the Iowa Wesleyan College teams that Jerry Ford coached convinced him to start a new business. Between a spartan facility he outfitted for baseball players to train in over the winter and a league for them in the spring and fall designed to draw scoutsâ interest, Ford built Perfect Game to conquer Iowa, not the baseball world.
At first, it did neither. The baseball industry subsists on reputation, and Perfect Game meant nothing. Ford bled money. âIf we wouldâve had any brains, we couldâve gone bankrupt at any time and gotten out,â Ford told me. âIâve often told people, had we been in the hardware business or a pizza shop or any other business, weâd have been gone a long time ago. But the thing that kept us going was what we were doing was benefiting a lot of kids. The idea was actually working. We just couldnât figure out how to make any money.â
In the fall of 1999, a Cedar Rapids businessman named Mark HanrahanââIâm the Fred Sanford of the airline surplus business,â he saidâwalked into Perfect Gameâs offices. He was indebted to Jerry Ford, who helped teach Hanrahanâs son Sean to hit for more power. Perfect Game needed a bailout. The gas company wasthreatening to turn off Perfect Gameâs heat. Hanrahan bought a majority share of Perfect Game and funded it through its first growth cycle.
âIâd sit in my office and Iâd write checks for $25,000 and $50,000, and that went on for five years,â Hanrahan said. âI had blind allegiance to Jerry. I will not say that I knew he would make it and do it as well as heâs done, but in baseball he was like nobody Iâd ever met. Jerry Ford is a goddamn genius.â
Ford wasnât just the strategic mind behind bringing elite youth baseball to the masses. He helped set the price for how much peanuts would cost at the games in Iowa. He tapped away on his computer, one finger at a time, to sculpt Perfect Game announcements. He believed that with time the business would turn around.
By the time it did, Hanrahan had sold his share of Perfect Game to a New Jersey man named Jose Rodriguez. Ford was still running the company and wanted it back. âJerry loves the game,â Rodriguez said. âJerry is knowledgeable about the game. He has a lot of great stuff when it comes to the game. Jerry is not
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