Pete Alonso Questions Sports Illustrated Over Story About Noah Syndergaard's Surgery

As it is everyone's method of communication nowadays, Pete Alonso took to Twitter today to express his thoughts on a Sports Illustrated story written about the ethics of getting Tommy John surgery with the medical community in the state it's in.

SI published this piece by Emma Baccellieri, in which she interviewed a series of doctors about the moral considerations of receiving elbow surgery during the coronavirus pandemic.

Alonso stepped up to the plate to defend his teammate in the replies, asking who is to judge the importance of a surgery that is crucial to performing one's job.

To that, I would argue that the medical ethicists quoted in the article are uniquely qualified to make that judgement. But back to Alonso:

I don't think anyone is here to argue whether or not Tommy John surgery is essential for a baseball player. It's more about if it's essential right now. Sure, the orthopedic surgeons may not be doing much otherwise, but the allocation of resources is the real problem at hand.

It's not outrageous to say that we're at the point where every single bed in a hospital matters. Taking up the time of an orthopedic surgeon during a pandemic might not be a decision that determines the health of others, but the time and equipment spent performing the surgery could be very well used elsewhere, for those who really need it right now-- which is a hell of a lot of people.

Criticism shouldn't really be aimed at Syndergaard, which is why I imagine Alonso decided to try and defend him here. Syndergaard didn't get hurt by any fault of his own, and the blame for deciding the surgery was crucial enough to undergo during all this doesn't fall at his feet. But that doesn't change the reality of the situation: in no way is this surgery essential in the grand scheme of everything that's going on.