Isaac HessWriting
Notes from the other side of a hip replacement
Most of this was first written on hipreplacementdude.com between 2016 and 2023. It's been restructured and cleaned up, but the experience behind it hasn't changed.
October 2026
My Mom, Eve, and Every Single Day
Mary Evelyn Hess never once told me no. She died on May 22, 2005, when I was nineteen. I got nineteen amazing years with her, and everything I've done since is a way of keeping her alive.
October 2026
The Whole Journey, Year by Year
Every season from the comeback to today: where I was, who I played for, what happened, and what the hip was doing. Sourced from my own notes and the Baseball-Reference register.
October 2026
The Fourth Ring: Phoenix Prospectors, 2013
A league that only lasted two seasons, a broken hand, a busy summer, and a championship game in Peoria on 1 September 2013.
October 2026
The Third Ring: Calgary, 2009
Three championships in three professional seasons, the last one won with a team that had picked me up in the middle of a bad summer.
October 2026
The Second Ring: Windy City, 2008
A no-hitter on 5 August, a tie for first place, and a three-game sweep played at the wrong park. How the ThunderBolts repeated in 2008.
October 2026
My Rookie Year, and the First Ring: Windy City, 2007
Two years after a surgeon replaced my hip I was a Frontier League champion and the series MVP. How a March tryout in Tucson turned into a title on 17 September 2007.
October 2026
Nine Innings, Nineteen Strikeouts, at 41 on a 21-Year-Old Hip
A weeknight complete game for the Phillies: two hits, no walks, 19 strikeouts, and player of the game. At 41, with a hip that was replaced when I was 19.
September 2026
I Have the Actual Recording of the Diamondbacks Saying No
My agent's follow-up call to Jerry Dipoto's office, recorded on a voice recorder I forgot I owned for fifteen years. Not my memory of it. The actual conversation.
September 2026
The Red Sox Sent Me Home. Fenway Waited Thirteen Years.
I flew to Boston certain they were going to sign me. Instead I sat in a hotel for two days waiting for a phone call that ended it. It took over a decade to find out how the story actually finished.
September 2026
The Tattoo That Changed How I Saw My Own Hip
First week of college, four weeks after my hip replacement, I sat down next to a kid I used to play ball with. He was in a wheelchair. What I learned about him in that class period changed how I carried my own recovery for the next twenty years.
September 2026
What Abundance Actually Means, From Someone Who Was Broke
It isn't manifesting and it isn't magic. It's a specific change in how you make decisions when you're afraid of running out.
September 2026
Two People Chasing Two Different Things
Trisha was going after a place in a Chicago dance company while I was going after a roster spot. She was there for the first two championships.
September 2026
I Was Going to Be on a Cal Ripken Reality Show. It Never Aired.
Twenty-five overlooked players, a contract with the Orioles, and ten episodes on CBS Sports Network. I found the whole thing in a 2012 message thread.
September 2026
The Marriage That Ended on New Year's Eve
I married her at twenty-seven. She was twenty-one and not finished. 2016 was the worst year of my adult life, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
September 2026
The Lefty Who Drove Twenty-Five Minutes to Throw With Me
Nobody was paying Michael Keyes and nobody was watching. He showed up anyway, every day, for a comeback that had no reason to work.
September 2026
The House I Recovered In
Both my parents died inside eight months. Two weeks after they replaced my hip, a family in Scottsdale took me in and then never stopped.
September 2026
The CD My Mother Was Reading When I Was Sixteen
My chiropractor handed me a Wayne Dyer CD in 2007. I passed it to a grieving friend. Years later I realized my mom had the same book when I was a kid, and I'd rolled my eyes at it.
September 2026
September 4, 2019: The Day I Stopped Working for Anyone
I was down to one shift a week at a bar I loved and didn't need the money. Quitting it anyway is the cleanest decision I've ever made.
September 2026
Every Friend Who Mattered Threw Left-Handed
Four men held up four different parts of my career and every one of them was a lefty. I noticed the pattern at forty-one and I don't think it's a coincidence.
September 2026
Danny Borne Taught Me How to Be a Pro in the Year His Own Career Ended
He was the veteran lefty in my rookie bullpen. I found his record twenty years later and realized what that season actually was for him.
September 2026
What a Blocker Is
It's a word from software. I learned it building CageList and then started seeing it everywhere: in players, in parents, in my own career. Most people aren't stuck. They're blocked, and those are different problems.
September 2026
Two Summers in Victoria
A Hall of Fame-argument manager, the best offensive numbers I ever put up, and a coach who decided my career didn't match my talent and quietly went to work on it.
September 2026
The Fifty Dollars Tom Novak Made Me Ask For
My first professional contract. Novak told me to call the manager, Andy Haines, and ask for fifty dollars more a month. I didn't get it, and I've never forgotten what it said about how he saw me.
September 2026
The Bash Brothers: Kyle Nyhart Caught Me at Twelve and Again at Thirty-Nine
He was my catcher growing up. He sent me to the surgeon who cleared the path to my hip replacement. And in 2024, twenty-some years later, he crouched behind the plate for me again.
September 2026
Paul Laxalt Was the One Example
He had the same Perthes I had. He'd had his hip replaced at twenty-five. And he was so plainly happy about it that a nineteen-year-old went and got a second opinion.
September 2026
My Aunt Pam Is the Reason the Surgery Happened
There's a version of this story where the operation never takes place. Not because a doctor said no. Because of insurance. She fixed it, and she has never once mentioned it.
September 2026
I Went to Turkey for Stem Cell Treatment on My Shoulder
In 2024 my arm hurt every single time I threw. I had a SLAP tear. At the start of 2025 I got stem cell treatment in Turkey, and I've been pitching great ever since.
September 2026
Why I Built CageList
I coached in three states without a facility, and every single time the hardest part was the same: finding somewhere to actually put a kid and a bucket of baseballs. The cages existed. You just couldn't book them.
September 2026
The Twenty-Three Artists on the Other Side of the Page
The same notebook where I listed everyone who got me here has a second column: musicians. Four of them have stars. Here's what was actually in my headphones through the rehab.
September 2026
Twenty-One Years on a Chromium Cobalt Hip
Mine has outlasted the number I was quoted at nineteen, and I still throw a hundred pitches a game. Here is what I actually do, what I stopped doing, and what I don't know.
September 2026
The Surgeon Who Wouldn't Tell Me No
December 2004. I was nineteen, home from my first semester at Washington State, and I went to get a second opinion on my hip. Dr. Michael Wilmink is the reason there was a career after it.
September 2026
The MADEisms: 132 Things I Say to Kids, and Why
I've been keeping a list on my phone for years without meaning to. Reading it back, they do four different jobs, and the strangest ones turn out to be the most important.
September 2026
I Found a List I Made of Everyone Who Got Me Here
Written in a notebook around 2011. Almost nobody on it is famous. That turns out to be the whole point.
September 2026
Legg-Calvé-Perthes Disease: What Happens When That Kid Grows Up
Every page about Perthes is written for the parent of a child who has it right now. Almost none are written by the child, thirty-four years later. I had it at seven, a total hip replacement at nineteen, and then I pitched seven professional seasons.
September 2026
"Keep Throwin'": What I Wrote at Twenty, Eleven Months After They Replaced My Hip
A page of verse dated 9 July 2006, 11:30pm. I was a year out of surgery and nobody would clear me to play. I'd forgotten I wrote it.
September 2026
I Got the Visa That Afternoon. That Night, the Tsunami.
Four months of work, $2,000, a trip to the consulate in California, and one phone call left to make. Then 11 March 2011 happened and I went to Winnipeg instead.
September 2026
How to Build a Baseball Lesson Business Without Leasing a Facility
The lease is what kills most coaches before they start. I ran MADE across three states without one, and the thing that nearly broke it wasn't demand.
September 2026
How Long Does a Hip Replacement Last?
Every page answering this quotes an average. I'm twenty-one years into mine, seven of them spent pitching professionally, and the averages were never built from people like us.
September 2026
"Good Luck, Kid": The Two Minutes I Spent on the Phone With Bo Jackson
I was twenty-two, two years out of a hip replacement. He was the only man alive who'd taken one back to the major leagues. Here's everything that was said.
September 2026
Every Offseason, Doc Was There
Dr. Robert Larson was my throwing partner for years in Phoenix. He's in his sixties and still pitches. I texted him today, which is most of the point of this.
September 2026
A Hall of Famer, 414 Home Runs, and Six All-Star Games: The Men Who Managed Me
Nobody in affiliated baseball would clear me to play. Meanwhile I was writing my name under Tim Raines, Darrell Evans and Willie Randolph. Here's every manager I had.
August 2026
They Asked Me to Coach. I Still Want to Play.
In 2024 I was a pitching coach in front of sold-out stadiums, on the most fun team in baseball. Here is what I took from it, and what I'm after next.
August 2026
The Summer I Pitched in Mexico
Diablos Rojos, then Oaxaca, at twenty-four. I found the email I sent home at three in the morning, and it says more about that year than any box score.
August 2026
I Asked an AI a Hundred Times If I Was Right. It Said Yes Every Time.
I made a consequential decision with an AI as my only real consultant. It agreed with me at every step. I was wrong, and the agreeing is exactly why.
August 2026
Eight Months After My Last Shot at the Majors, I Took a Commission-Only Job Selling SEO
March 2011 was the last real chance. By October I was cold-calling small businesses. Everything I do now started in that gap, and I didn't notice for years.
August 2026
What Sports Can You Actually Do After a Hip Replacement?
Twenty-one years on a replaced hip, including seven professional seasons. What I do, what I gave up, and why the standard list is written for a different patient.
August 2026
I Signed With the Padres. Five Hours Later They Called It Off.
A physical, not a scout, ended my shot at affiliated baseball. The players' union and one of the largest law firms in the world spent months trying to fix it and couldn't.
August 2026
The Man Who Rebuilt Bo Jackson Taught Me How to Use My Hip
Mack Newton had both his hips replaced, rehabbed Bo Jackson back to the major leagues, and then spent two months with a broke 22-year-old. Everything I say about champions started on his voicemail.
August 2026
I Founded Hustle Ball Because Little League Is Dying
Little League has lost participants nearly every year since the late 1990s. I don't think the answer is another tournament circuit. I think it's the format I built at MADE Baseball.
August 2026
Hip Replacement Recovery: The Timeline Nobody Gives Athletes
My actual milestones after a total hip replacement at 19: cane, mound, hundred-pitch outing. Not a prescription. A data point, with the caveats stated.
August 2026
Gamify Everything: How I Actually Run a Youth Baseball Practice
Kids don't quit baseball because it's hard. They quit because it's boring. Here is the method I built over years of coaching: every skill turned into a game with a winner.
August 2026
Four Championships in Seven Years of Pro Ball
Three of them came in my first three professional seasons, two years after a surgeon replaced my hip. Here is what actually happened, and where you can check it.
August 2026
Fire in My Belly
My dad taught me one thing that outlasted him by twenty years. I found it written down in a note I'd forgotten I wrote.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Spiritual
The sixth and final pillar. Inner peace is a competitive advantage: gratitude, stillness, and the practice that changed my recovery more than any exercise did.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Relationships
The fourth pillar. How you treat people is a habit: trainable, repeatable, and the one that decides whether anyone shows up when it gets hard.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Nutrition
The third pillar. Exercise is king, diet is queen; together you have a kingdom. What I actually eat, and why it matters more after surgery than before it.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Movement
The second pillar. Physical mastery builds mental mastery. After a joint replacement that stops being a metaphor and becomes the whole job.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Mindset
The first of six pillars. Mindset isn't a mood you wait for; it's trained the way you train a body, and it's the one you build before you need it.
August 2026
The Championship Program: Daily Ops
The fifth pillar. The small things done consistently are the big things. Champions don't get bored with the basics, they master them over and over.
August 2026
Can You Run After a Hip Replacement?
Twenty-one years on a replaced hip, seven of them pitching professionally. The honest answer about running, including the part where I tell you what I don't do.
August 2026
Athletes Who Came Back After a Hip Replacement, and Why the List Is Shorter Than You Think
Most of the famous names you'll be shown had hip resurfacing, not a total hip replacement. The distinction matters, and it changes the whole list.
August 2026
Am I Too Young for a Hip Replacement?
I had mine at 19 and pitched seven professional seasons on it. Here's how I'd think about the age question, from the patient's side, not the surgeon's.
February 2023
Six Exercises to Prepare for Total Hip Replacement Surgery
Six simple pre-surgery exercises: quad sets, gluteal sets, straight leg raises, heel slides, clamshells and hip bridges, with how to do each one.
November 2017
Does My Total Hip Replacement Feel Good EVEryday??
People ask whether my hip replacement feels good all the time. My answer, and why I refuse to let a statistic decide what I'm capable of.
November 2017
Perthes Disease: Advice for Parents and Kids
I had Legg-Calvé-Perthes at 7 and a total hip replacement just shy of my 20th birthday. What I wish my parents and I had known in between.
November 2017
Three Nuggets of Hip Replacement Advice
What I'd tell anyone facing a total hip replacement, from someone who had one at 19 and pitched professionally afterwards. Two of the three are mental.
December 2016
The Best Hip Replacement Exercises for Active People
Three exercises that kept me moving after a total hip replacement, plus why the mindset you build before surgery matters more than the surgery itself.
December 2016
The Best Diet to Prepare for a Hip Replacement
There are no secrets to food: eat the good stuff. The shopping list I actually use, and why sorting your diet out before surgery makes everything after it easier.
August 2013
What MADE Stands For
Motivation, Appreciation, Dedication, EVEryday. I wrote the acronym down in 2013 and I've built everything since on top of it.
November 2012
Invest in Yourself
A paragraph in a book changed how I treated my body at 20, two years after my hip replacement. Three concrete things I've done ever since.
July 2012
The Summer I Played Professional Baseball in the Czech Republic
Eight teams in the whole country. Games on weekends only. I left the Atlantic League to go, and it taught me something about the big-league dream I couldn't have learned at home.
May 2012
Velocity vs. Command: Strikes Beat MPH
Written from the dugout in my sixth professional season, watching guys throw 85 and dice up hitters who couldn't touch them. The lesson has only gotten truer.