Nov. 9, 1964 - Doctors at St. Luke’s Hospital in Houston, Tex., cut a nerve in Whitey Ford’s left arm during a 1½-hour operation today, and a hospital spokesman said the Yankee pitcher should be throwing the ball again by spring training next year. Ford will be in the hospital about a week.
Ford had complained at the end of the baseball season of feeling a numbness and “cold” in his left hand, the one that has guided the Yanks to so many victories since 1950. Earlier in his career, in 1957 and 1958, Ford had experienced less severe discomfort connected with his circulatory system.
A spokesman said the operation was a “transthoracic sympathectomy,” which means a sympathetic nerve which supplies the muscular artery was cut. This allowed the blood to flow more freely to the arm.
The shoulder was not entered during the operation, the spokesman said, and therefore Ford’s muscular coordination should be entirely normal.
The operation was performed by Dr. Denton Cooley, a prominent specialist in vascular surgery.
On Oct. 7, Ford started the first game of the World Series in St. Louis. He was knocked out in the sixth inning. Normally, he would have started two more times in the seven-game series, but his availability remained questionable from day to day, and he never did pitch again.
If his arm comes around now as the doctors assure him it will, Ford may add to his career record of 216 victories, 84 defeats, for a .720 percentage — the best on record for any pitcher with 100 or more victories.
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