quote:Here is one article I came up with.
http://kdka.com/health/basebal...juries.2.759074.html
FWIW, my son's BF mom told me when down in Alabama many years ago, Dr. Andrews was already treating 9 and 10 year old pitchers for injury. I do beleive there in those injuries has resulted in current recommendations. I do beleive there have been 9 and 10 years olds requiring surgery down in Alabama. Also while up in STL last summer, the doctor told me the best thing I ever did for son was limit his pitching time when younger (he began at 8-9) and play other sports.
No issues with young players pitching and throwing off days, the issue has become pitching AND catching at the same time. This, IMO, is overuse, the biggest culprit to injuries for young players.
I will agree with you on that last paragraph. You mentioned that injury happens to players who both pitch and catch at the same time (same game). Overuse from "throwing hard" in too close of a timeframe without recovery from fatigue and normal muscle stress is what leads to chronic pain. Two years ago I took my kid off of a travel team because son was being used to much at the pitching position. The wierd part of it at the time was that I took him off mainly because other parts of his body were getting sore from pitching (legs, side, back, and especially the heels of his feet) too much over short periods of time. His arm was never in pain but I worried that his other body parts hurting would lead into bad pitching mechanic adjustments to aleviate some fatigue which would then in turn lead into arm pain. The move to take him off the team was a good one. I felt bad for the other starting pitcher- he had to pitch more to make up for the slack which compounded that teams problems.