Something by “Rage Against The Machine” thumps out the boom box, bounces off the walls and fills the South Carolina State University weight room with an adrenaline-pumping anthem.

In a corner of the room, Kaleb Davis, a solid 6-4 kid with blond locks, sets his New York Yankees cap to the side, settles into a rack, stares blankly across the room and began pushing weight. He works deliberately through the set, his gold number 49 pendant swinging from his necklace and bumping off his chest, before moving down the line to the next exercise in the workout designed for him by South Carolina State University strength and conditioning coach John Williams. There’s no break in the focus. Not once does he acknowledge the four women or the younger boy working out in the room as well. Barely a word is spoken to Williams or assistant strength and conditioning coach Allen Van Norden.



There’s no time to fool around when you are traveling down the road Davis is. For a second time, the Anderson University pitcher and former Calhoun Academy standout, is on the comeback trail. Just over two years ago, Davis was working to come back from Tommy John Surgery, the end result of years of elbow problems. It began in Davis’ junior year in high school when he threw a pitch and, he said, his elbow felt as if it unhinged before coming back together. He played a two-week guessing game with doctors before he was told he would never pitch again. He refused that diagnosis and was given two options, surgery or rehab. Wanting to earn a college scholarship, he chose rehab and eventually earned a scholarship to Anderson. But, in the fifth game of the fall campaign at the college, the elbow felt like it unhinged again and on May 8, 2007, Davis underwent Tommy John Surgery.

Tommy John and back again

Touch your thumb to your pinky finger and look down at the inside of your wrist.

See that tendon that sticks out right there in the middle? Maybe you don’t. Some people have them, and some people don’t. Kaleb Davis had the tendon and it saved his baseball career, at least for a short time.

That tendon is called Palmaris Longus, and the one Davis had in his right wrist isn’t there anymore. It’s still around, it just moved up in the world, relocated to his elbow where it was woven in a figure eight around his torn Ulnar Collateral Ligament. There it grew and helped hold his elbow together. In sports, it’s known as Tommy John surgery, named after the former Major League Baseball pitcher. In medicine, it’s simply Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction.

There’s a 90-plus percent success rate on the surgery and Davis took rehab head on.

“I started doing most of my throwing in August,” Davis said. “I had the surgery in May and started doing my throwing when I went back to school. I started to pick it up around December and I actually pitched in April and my shoulder really didn’t feel bad at all.”

In an 8-5 win over Southern Wesleyan, Davis worked three innings, striking out three without giving up a hit.

“It was predetermined before I went in that I would throw either four innings tops or go by the pitch count,” Davis said. “One base runner reached on an error. After that game, I felt great. I got a win out of it and that ended the season for me. One game, four innings, my velocity was a little down but I was still four or five months away from being 100 percent. I was at a high, high, going into the summer. I just lifted all summer, and I was very excited coming into the fall.”

Then came scout day when the pros came to take a look at Davis and his teammates.

“I threw great on scout day,” he said. “I felt as good as I have ever felt. I was between 87-89 miles per hour, and I threw over 90 a couple of times. I felt really good and I talked with some guys after that.”

Cascading from high to low

Davis went from the high of throwing well on scout day to the low of facing the growing pain in his shoulder. It was tough to face, but he went in and had an MRI done.

“I had a torn labrum,” Davis said. “So, I went from almost as high as you can go to about as low as you can go in a matter of weeks. That was pretty rough.”

When it comes to pitching, few people know as much as Tom House. Currently the pitching coach at Southern Cal, House has spent a good part of his life studying pitching and has worked with the likes of Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Mark Prior and Kevin Brown. The story of what happened to Kaleb Davis was familiar to House because it happens all the time.

“There is a precedence for this, and it’s called cascading,” House said.

“What happens in most cases, a Tommy John will cascade into a bad shoulder and a bad shoulder will cascade into a bad elbow. In other words, what happens in the rehab, the subconscious mind, the conditioned body, the mechanics all have a tendency to favor where the surgery was at the expense of the joint above it or below it. It happens a lot.

“The torn labrum is fixable, but is (Davis) going to lose his motivation muscle before it’s done?” House continued. “The really cool thing about today’s surgical, physical therapy and afterward performance therapy leading into competition again is guys are bouncing back from what used to be career threatening or career-ending injuries.”

Davis almost never gave himself a chance to return. After putting so much into the Tommy John rehab, the torn labrum hit him hard. It didn’t help when he woke up in the hospital post-surgery Nov. 18 and learned exactly what the inside of his shoulder looked like.

“The labrum attaches your bicep to your shoulder,” Davis said. “My labrum wasn’t torn. It was detached. They went ahead and stitched it back together, but my doctor told me there was no way I should have been able to throw a ball much less raise my hand above my head. He said he’d never seen anything like that.

“I came to a really low point after that because I had really worked my tail off with the elbow so I could get back and help the team. I thought about quitting a couple of times because, you know, the elbow surgery was rough. Just have the surgery was rough and the rehab was awful after that. I was a junior this year and that put me coming into my senior year on a big ‘if’. There were many a day I thought about walking into the office with a couple of my coaches and just saying, ‘You all have given me a lot, a scholarship, and I’ve pitched probably eight games in three years. They could be giving to some other kid out there that could help the team.’”

The road to recovery

Quitting is easier said than done.

Davis, who was a two-year FCA president at Calhoun Academy and leads a Bible study group at Anderson, figures if the worst that ever happens to him is arm problems, he has had a pretty good life. That doesn’t mean the injuries don’t torment him.

Davis has a baseball field in his front yard complete with a grass infield. In the backyard, he has a bullpen. In his heart, he has baseball. That is how it has always been and how it still is. That is why with the right side of his upper body ravaged by doing an unnatural thing -- pitching overhanded -- Davis is building himself up to give it another go.

At SCSU, Williams has Davis strengthening his core, and according to House, that’s the right approach.

“If he gets a good conditioning program, and again the performance rehab is important,” he said. “Once medical rehab turns him loose, he has six to 12 weeks of performance rehab. Even though the pain is gone, and he thinks he is completely healthy, it’s going to take a while to completely accommodate the shoulder capsule to throwing again. It sounds like he is working with some pretty solid trainers so he should be just fine.

“He can’t rush into it,” House added. “He has to make sure the little stuff in his shoulder is just as strong as the big stuff. A lot of (pitchers) are returning to form. The more surgeries that are done the better they get at them. Elbows seem to be less of a problem than shoulders. So, again, if he comes back to form, when he is 100 percent and when he will ever throw again is in the hands of the therapist and the hard work the kid is putting in right now. He can have great mechanics, but if he is not physically balanced off with his strength then he’s never going to return to form.”

Tommy John has nothing on this, but Kaleb Davis has come back from the brink of nearly walking away, stronger and more driven than ever. He is still chasing his big-league dream, and that is why he soaks his blue Under Armour shorts and shirt in this Wednesday morning workout.

“There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about (the MLB Draft),” Davis said. “Now, even if I come back at 100 percent, throwing 91-93, I know I will get looks, but when they see I have had Tommy John Surgery and labrum surgery that is probably going to put me down some. But, I’ve heard it could go either way. I have had two surgeries that are a pitcher’s nightmare. You have those out the way and there’s nothing but green grass.”

T&D Sports Editor Brian Linder can be reached via e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553.

You must be logged in to comment.