By Jim Hague
It’s probably the scariest words that a baseball pitcher can hear.
Tommy John surgery.
Kevin Matawa had to hear those words more than two years ago. They were words that changed the Rutgers-Newark junior forever.
The left-handed hurler vividly recalls the day that he suffered the gruesome injury.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Matawa said. “It was March 17, 2006 and we were playing Occidental in California. I was breezing along, having pitched four great innings. I was coasting and then I sat down in the dugout and knew my arm hurt. I thought maybe it was just a stiff forearm at first or maybe a tight muscle. I went out for the fifth inning and in my first warm-up, I felt the bone separate. I didn’t want to tell Coach (Mark Rizzi) that I was hurt. I continued to pitch, but each pitch I threw, the pain got worse. I made it through the inning, but I told Coach that I didn’t think I could pitch the next inning.”
Matawa then looked at his forearm.
“It was so big that it looked like a watermelon,” Matawa said.
He took a month off from pitching and tried to rehabilitate the injury. But that was just prolonging the inevitable. Matawa needed the reconstructive elbow ligament surgery that saved the career of former Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees lefty Tommy John more than 30 years ago, surgery that became synonymous with the pitcher. A ligament was removed from another part of Matawa’s body and reconstructed in his left elbow.
At that point, Matawa faced the crossroads of his baseball life. He had to make the decision of a lifetime.
“I asked myself, ‘Do I want to continue to play baseball?’” Matawa said. “If I wanted to continue, I had to be in it 100 percent. I had to push it to the max and listen to the doctors. I knew that it was going to be hard to come back. I knew I couldn’t rush it. It was a long rehabilitation.
Added Matawa, “I talked it over with my family and they were behind me 100 percent. I thought about it for a week. I remember going to where I played high school baseball (Wallington) and looking at the field. I went to where I played Little League. I remembered all the great memories I had playing baseball and how much I loved baseball. I figured I still had a few memories left in me and I had to get a few more before I was done.”
Matawa decided to have the surgery, performed by Dr. David Altchek, the team physician for the New York Mets, at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
“On the day Dr. Altchek did my surgery, he did 11 other Tommy Johns the same day,” Matawa said. “There was a pitcher in the (Philadelphia) Phillies’ organization there the same day. It was amazing.”
Matawa’s surgery went well. Soon after the surgery, he was ready to start the rehab.
“I was wearing a robotic arm for about a month and a half,” Matawa said. “I was being called Robo-Man, Robo-Cop. But I was going to do whatever the doctors said. I wasn’t going to risk anything.”
Doctors told Matawa that it would take about 12-to-15 months before he could do anything remotely close to pitching again.
Rizzi said that never doubted Matawa coming back from his injury. He remembered one of the best pitchers he had on the high school level at Paterson Catholic named Vito Marichal having the surgery and recovered in time to pitch the following year.
“I knew that Kevin would pitch again,” Rizzi said. “His love of the game had a lot to do with it. I knew that he had the desire. It was all about how much he would improve, how much effort he put into it. He had some success for us as a sophomore, beating The College of New Jersey to get us in the (NJAC) playoffs. I think in the front of his mind, he was going to come back just on drive alone.
Added Rizzi, “But Kevin was particular in his routine. He pretty much stuck to the program and did it to the letter. I know it killed him not to be playing baseball. He couldn’t wait to get back on the field. I think that desire played a big part in his making it back.”
Matawa had to sit out all of last season, recovering from the surgery. He spent most of the season in the press box, working on game operations including the scoreboard and sound effects. But he wanted to be playing.
“I lived in the training room,” Matawa said. “I worked very hard to make it back.”
Over the winter, slowly and gradually, Matawa made his way back. He started throwing lightly.
“During the throwing program in the winter, it never got to a point where it was feeling good,” Matawa said. “I just didn’t want to re-injure myself. I never thought I was going to have to do so much. There was some pain, but that was just scar tissue breaking away. Eventually, I was good to go. There was no more pain.”
