Sioux City X’s Outfielder Battles Shoulder Surgery, Credits CNOS Doctor for Getting Him to Final Career Season
Nov 5, 2024
If you’ve been to a Sioux City Explorers game in recent years, his name will be familiar, but an injury nearly took him out of the game. “I was playing Sioux City for three and a half years.” Chase Harris was a star for the Sioux City Explorers. Fast on his feet in the outfield and a powerhouse at the plate, until something happened. “I dove for a ball in center field, and I felt something. It just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t like an excruciating pain, but it just didn’t feel right,” Harris recalled.
During the 2022 season an injury, specifically a torn labrum in his throwing arm. “I could throw about 90 feet with no pain, but as soon as I tried to really throw further than that and really throw as hard as I could, it was excruciating pain, tingling all the way down at my fingertip,” Harris said. With more baseball to play, the team at CNOS helped him finish out the season. “It started with a couple of injections just to kind of help numb the pain and help get me through the season.” He played the 2023 season with the injury, but for Harris to keep playing the game he loved, he needed surgery.
He turned to Dr. Brian Johnson at CNOS. “He had a bucketed type six SLAP tear, so it‘s not a very common tear, and it was the superior labrum, anterior to posterior. That’s what a SLAP stands for,” explained Dr. Johnson of Harris’s grade 4 tear. “And his biceps, anchor point in the shoulder was unstable and is allowing the biceps to flip around. The long end of the biceps to flip around like a loose cannon.” That cannon of an arm Harris was used to out of commission. While he could still play, his strength was impacted by the injury. Even everyday tasks would send pain down his arm.
“It would hurt. If you had hair. Every time you did your hair, it hurt. Every time you raised up to grab something above your head, reaching out behind your body, reaching behind your back, anything like that,” said Johnson. “Those things would hurt.” Harris wanted to do one more season of baseball to play 10 years professionally. Surgery was necessary to reach that goal. Because he was over the age of 30, the repair to his shoulder was a bit different. Instead of repairing what was broken, Dr. Johnson protected what was good.
“We did debridement and we released part of the biceps that was attached. And so we cleaned up all the loose tissue and meticulously respected everything that’s normal and that included releasing 1/6 of his biceps. Five/sixths of his biceps were normal, and we left that alone,” said Dr. Johnson. “But the one part that was flipping around, that’s the part we got rid of.”
The surgery Harris faces, some of the best athletes in the country faced, too. “John Elway, the first two Super Bowls he ever won was after his biceps was released. Bret Farve, his season with the Vikings when he went to the NFC Championship, his biceps were released in his throwing arm,” Dr. Johnson said of the surgery he did on Harris. “So once you’re above that age, even in competitive, high-demand throwing athletes, you can release the biceps in that situation and perform well.” Harris completed his recovery and physical therapy back home in Idaho during the off-season then came back to Sioux City for one final season with the Explorers crediting Dr. Johnson and his dedication to helping athletes stay in the game with the success of his final season.
“He took such good care of me. I wanted to play. That was my last year. I knew I wanted it to be my 10th professional season. I kind of closed out a decade,” Harris said. Dr. Johnson, himself an athlete who played football at the college level and experienced his share of sports injuries, says it’s about keeping local athletes in the game. “It’s a privilege to take care of good people. And sports gave me a lot in my life. So many lessons I learned playing on the football field that you never learn in a book. And it’s a privilege to take care of good athletes,” Dr. Johnson said.
Harris finished out his career in Chicago after being traded from the Explorers to the Dogs. Harris said, that with an injury like his, it’s not just a physical pain athletes experience, but a mental one as well. He credits Dr. Johnson with helping him navigate through that part of his recovery journey as well.
“It’s more than just an injury. It’s mental, it’s emotional, all these things,” said Harris. “He understands athletes. He understands the mental toll it can take. And he also understands that if you’re not feeling 100% how frustrating that can be as an athlete because you feel like you’re not performing to the best of your ability when you’re injured.” Recovery from an injury, especially one that requires surgery, can take months, even years. Dr. Johnson says having the right mindset during your recovery is also an important part of the process.
“Facts don‘t care about our feelings. And when I was playing, I‘d want to be better yesterday. I’d want to be better as soon as possible,” said Dr. Johnson. “But the facts aren’t manipulated by my feelings. And so if that’s true, allow those facts to help you and heal you intellectually and emotionally and spiritually because it won’t touch it physically. I’m going to say, ’I’m going to get better for a year’, and that’s a fact, Jack. And allow that to give you the motivation to get the best out of your situation.”
Harris is now retired from professional baseball and lives in Idaho with his family.
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