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Reply to "Is fastball mania putting young arms on the brink?"

It's like any measurable physical feat in sports - the training and conditioning evolves and allows for feats once thought impossible. It wasn't that long ago that the four-minute-mile seemed like an incredible accomplishment. 

I will also argue that I don't necessarily believe injury rates are truly any higher than in the past. I don't believe there is some epidemic of arm injuries. Pitchers have always been prone to injuries - throwing a baseball is an incredibly destructive act on the human arm and shoulder. The difference is that 40 years ago (maybe even more recently) you didn't have a lot of options. When you got injured you stopped pitching or you pitched with pain as best you could. I'm sure if you dug up some of those old-timers and did MRI's you'd find a lot of damaged ucl's. 

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