I was just away for a week, however, the town I was staying in happened to be having a national youth tournament going on. One day when the rest of the family was tired I went over to the fields to watch for a while. I had this thread in mind so I was specifically looking for things to share in this discussion.
The first thing that stood out is how many times during the game I was watching I heard a coach, parent, sibling, whoever, yell something like “throw hard” to the pitcher. Coaches literally pleading with the kid on the mound to “keep throwing hard”. I didn’t once hear, “change speeds”, “pitch smart”, although, who knows, maybe that is said in the dugout. I didn’t hear anyone ask the pitcher if he is tired, fatigued or sore. This was the finals, so these teams had already played at least 6 games in the last 2 days. There is definitely a macho environment around these games, and you have to think some of these kids don’t want to ever say they’re tired because it may make them look less than tough.
The second thing I noticed was the pitcher for one team I was watching sat out an inning after he was pulled, and then was put in to catch. This happens all the time during my son’s games as well. Coaches, parents, players want to win that trophy. That often means riding your best guys, which could mean pitching and catching for some of the kids.
I went back to my hotel and caught up on this thread. Since I started it, I feel obliged to follow it. There’s a lot of valuable discussion going on here about overuse injuries. I remembered that last year we had two of our pitchers unavailable to pitch by the end of the season. One kid, a PO, was diagnosed with the growth plate injury that you hear about, while the other, pitcher/catcher had an unknown problem. The reason it was unknown was because the parents wouldn’t talk about it. He was obviously hurt, and as we wound up the year he wasn’t pitching or catching. He had resorted to a side-arm style of throwing the ball in from the outfield. This was U11. The irony about these two kids is they were the only two on the team who took private pitching lessons. It made me wonder about what it takes to become a “pitching coach”? Is there any certification a parent should look for like the way you’d look for a PGA professional if you wanted to take golf lessons?
Finally, I’d like to say how funny I find the whole idea of these kids playing 9, 10, 11 months a year is. Some of the greatest players of all time had actual jobs in the winter. Suit salesman, truck driver, cattle rancher etc. and would then use spring training to get back into playing shape. Now we have parents of 11 year olds afraid Jimmie is going to fall behind if he doesn’t hit all winter or pitch in fall league.