real green posted:Steve A. posted:There is no question that arm injuries are at an exponential increase compared to 20-30 years ago. I get it in that what surgeons do is: they perform surgery. This is how they get paid. However, I happen to know a former DIv 1 coach who was in charge for 17 years at a prominent South East school ending in the 90's. Guess how many arm blow outs he had???? Zero. Zero in 17 years. Had numerous Big League pitchers from his school.
My own experience was similar. Pitched Div . Graduated in 88'. Zero arm injuries on our entire staff that I can recall in those 4 years. Zero. Pitched in Pro Ball thru mid 90's. I can certainly recall some guys with arm trouble who were shut down but nowhere near what we see today. I'm sorry but its just not close. Guys are throwing, on average, with way higher velocity now & as a result the spike in traumatic arm injury.
Edit - I believe your experience and the coaches experience is true, but I don't believe that experience supports an exponential increase in arm injury.
I believe this to be true, but at the time how did one define arm injury? I have second hand knowledge from multiple college programs in that era that if you wanted to play you didn't speak about a sore arm. There was no fix. So what would happen? The player would simply stop performing at his peak and get less innings to the point where he was done with baseball. No injury reported. It becomes a survival of the fittest. Those genetically gifted to perform at those levels without injury moved on. Those that were not simply moved to the bottom of the rotation until they rotated out of baseball. No injury ever reported.
I'm not saying this is inaccurate but it was simply not my experience. If you blow out your UCL or your Rotator, there is not enough aspirin or Ben Gay in Texas to get you to post your next start & be in the zip code of effective. So, the notion that there were a fleet of guys grinding out UCL & Rotator tears & slowly transitioning out of the game seems a bit difficult for me to believe.
Maybe legion ball or HS ball flipping it up there, but 1 dose of that at a Higher College level or in Pro Ball & case closed, you are done. I understand the data was not tracked like now & it certainly did happen (my Dad, without question, blew his UCL in 1964). Never had surgery, was not an option then.