@jeremyroth44[/author_info] [/author]
Baseball, along with every other sport or activity that involves physical movement or contact, poses a risk of injury that should not go unnoticed. No one wants his or her body parts to be picked apart, but it is unfortunately a part of playing.
Though injuries are common, at times they are something that may be overlooked. Professional athletes seem almost invincible with their large statures and athletic abilities to die for, but that is not the reality of it. Injuries are inevitable, but still, avoiding them is not a lost cause.
“During my little league career, I wish I stretched more and learned more on injury prevention,” said Drew University pitcher Nate Brown. “It is something that should not be taken lightly at all, as it can make all the difference in a kid’s baseball career.”
In the game of baseball, there is one injury that continues to plague the careers of its participants, and that is the tearing of the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL). This injury is better known as the one that requires Tommy John Surgery, one of the most talked about operations in all of sports.
The UCL is a ligament inside of the arm that connects two bones, one that resides in the forearm and one in the upper arm. If torn, then the elbow will become unstable and unable to handle the aggressive motions that come with throwing a baseball. With that being said, pitchers are usually the unlucky subjects of Tommy John surgery.
Some of the game’s greats have undergone the procedure, including hall of famer John Smoltz, Adam Wainwright, Tim Hudson, and even the man who it is named after, Tommy John. He was the first to have the procedure done successfully in 1974, and before then, a tear of the UCL meant the end of a career.
Tommy John surgery is one of the major milestones in baseball and in sports medicine, and it now has a success rate around 85 percent. However, not all pitchers come back as strong as the gentlemen named above, so the best route to combatting it is to maintain healthy throwing mechanics from the youth baseball days and on.
The injury develops when a heavy amount of stress is applied to the ligament, and if a pitcher wants to increase the velocity and the movement of each pitch, then each pitch will be adding to the risk factor. Pitchers twist, bend, and snap their arms in all different directions in an attempt to fool whoever is standing in the batter’s box, so there is no wonder why their ligaments may be holding on for dear life.
At a young age, our arms are in the middle of developing and our bodies as a whole are at a higher risk for injury. Position wise, not everyone on the field has a specific place to be, and coaches often rotate players around to get looks all over the diamond. However, even though players are not dominantly pitching and throwing the ball constantly to make the cut, any type of throwing adds stress to the ligaments. That means that even the third baseman making a stretch throw across the diamond is at risk.
“Growing up, I could have taken more precaution whenever I threw to prevent injury,” said former Rowan University infielder Jeff Htam. “You think you can never get hurt and always wanted to throw without a worry about your arm.”
Limiting the amount of throws in a game is hard to do considering the fact that there is no telling where the ball is going to be hit. As these little league players grow up, coaches will begin to get a sense of who can pitch and who is better off left to pick dandelions in the outfield. Pitching requires a strong and accurate arm, which may be hard to come by at a young level, so coaches are forced to rely on just a few arms. This is where the conflict arises.
“When I was younger, pitch count was not much of a focus amongst coaches,” said Brown. “I never would want to be taken out during games, but when it comes to injury prevention, it is something I wish was implemented on all the various teams I was on.”
No matter how important of a game it is, the health of a player needs to come first. Coaches seem to forget that it is just a game, and players as young as 10 and 11 could end up throwing complete games with over 80 pitches. Whether there is a better option on the bench or not, the pitch count of a pitcher should be followed carefully. It is when pitchers go out on the mound without a limit that injuries usually occur.
If a 10 to 11 year old is throwing complete games and continues to do so as they move up the ranks, that heavy workload will eventually catch up to them. The arm can only sustain so much stress, and if one expects to have success at the high school and collegiate levels, then a pitch count must be established from the beginning. Sure, little league trophies are cool and all, but you may be regretting that time you pitched nearly 20 innings in a week and half when you are sitting on your high school’s bench with your arm in a sling.
Professional baseball is heaven for youth baseball players, but they will never get there by putting their arms through hell. A professional game is nine innings long, and pitchers are expected to be able to have the stamina to withstand them. That will be nearly impossible if overthrowing is part of the mix at a young age.
A simple way to complete an outing of pitching without throwing too many pitches is to get batters out, but that is not as simple as it sounds. Throwing fastballs in youth baseball is enough to get a pitcher through a game, but as players grow older and become more skilled and powerful, velocity is irrelevant. As a result, pitchers resort to throwing off-speed pitches like curveballs, sliders and changeups.
The power of these off-speed or “junk” pitches has the ability to completely knock batters out of their cleats, but they also require a little extra twisting, bending and snapping of the arm. At the time, it may seem worth it to throw a curveball here and there, but in the long run it is the UCL that is going to take the real hit.
“Kids see pitchers nowadays with all types of breaking pitches and aspire to be just like them,” said Brown. “Then when their peers are doing such, kids need to start throwing off speed as well to not fall behind their competition.”
Avoiding the breaking ball until at least the teen years would be wise of an aspiring professional baseball player, because those pitches will really be necessary one day and spending over a year recovering from a surgery that does not always guarantee success is not in the blue prints.
Baseball is just a game, but for those that plan to make it a career, stretching, pitch counting and a lay off of the off-speed pitches is the path to where they want to be. Tommy John surgery is a brutal scenario that no player wishes to get themselves caught up in, so be smart and throw smart.