16 year old pitched 12 innings on Sunday

Wow! Thats worse than both ends of a double header. Our Son has always been told, if you have to cool down, try not to have to pitch again that day, regardless. 12 innings in one day, I hope he did not pitch the day before also. Most of our tournaments around here have pitch limits and those are a little high sometimes too. I take it they were winning both games or that probably would have changed too.

You do have to ask yourself as well what the heck that dad was thinking, exposure or arm exploding.

Don't you wonder how that kid feels today?
Shame on that coach, dad, tournament director,ump & most of all that kid. There are many games a year but you only have one arm.

What was dad thinking? Probably something like, "My son is the greatest ball player since Babe Ruth!"

How is the boy feeling today? I would guess some constant throbbing pain, unable to lift his arm over his head.

When he breaks down in the spring, dad can blame the HS coach I guess!

Yeah , I blame dad. First of all you can not blame the "Coach" because lets be honest he has to be brain dead to allow a player to do this. So is Dad brain dead? Yes. So we can't blame him either. I say someone needs to call social services and have the kid removed from the home. How hard did he throw? I might have some room at my house.

I'll bet Dad had something to say like..."Junior here's got a rubber arm, he could throw all week"

I hear some derivitive of that nearly everytime a youngster gets his arm abused.

And CM,
He's a 6'6" lefty switchhitter with hands the size of Contreras, and 4 pitches. The downside is he only touches 90.

Wow - that is crazy stupid. I am a big believer you can get quite a bit out of your arm if you condition your body to it but even that is beyond ridiculous. There is no way his mechanics nor conditioning could have offset any of that.

Plus the cooling down and warming back up had to be the hardest part.

I will take a chance on him. lol

It reminds me of the most dominate pitcher in our entire area of NC when my son was younger. He was 6'0 165 at 14 and was 85 to 87 from regulation distance and had a hammer. The kid would throw the first game of a tourney on Friday and the Championship game on Sunday every weekend. He was pitching on another team during the week and throwing complete games there.

After our kids all moved on to HS I asked several people about the kid and how he was doing. The kid never pitched in HS. He had labrum issues , elbow issues etc etc. It all flared up his freshman year in hs. His baseball was over after HS. The dad was very obvious from the stands during the games. Throw the Cheese!! They can't touch you!! Here it comes try and hit it!! I asked people why they threw him like they did and the answer was "Look at him he's a work horse. The more he throws the better he gets."

How sad that people who have no clue will not listen to people that do. The kid ends up paying the price. I have seen this happen many times over the years. The Dad wants to parade the kid around like a show horse. The Dad loves the attention that the kid gets and the phone calls from everyone asking for him to play on their team. How sad it really is.

I almost got in a fight coaching a 14u game in Wilmington a few years back. We faced a LHP that was a tremendous talent. Tall , lanky , great lower body and the kid could pitch. He was bringing it too , I would say he was in the lower 80's no problem. We had a very good team and squeaked out a 2-1 win. This team comes out of the losers bracket and we face them for the championship on Sunday. Well I just know we are not going to have to face the LHP again. But there he is warming up in the pen. The kid threw a complete 7 inning game against us on Friday throwing at least 100 pitches. Well from the first inning you could tell the kid was worn out. We jumped out to a 4 or 5 run lead after two and the kid was throwing a ton of pitches and rotating his arm over and over after every pitch.

I asked the coach "Man don't you think that young man has done enough already. Come on coach this is ridiculous your going to ruing a good arm." The coach says "Hey you coach your F----- team and I will coach mine." I say "When you start acting like a coach that is exactly what I will do. You better be glad that kid is not mine." He responds as he walks up to get in my face "Well he is my GD kid and I will pitch him as long as I see fit." I dont remember what I said next but it was enough to get the police called to the field. He left the kid in another couple of innings and we run ruled them. I often wondered what happened to that kid. How sad.

Coach,

The part you didn't say is, he probably pitched on Saturday, too. That's how they got to the championship game!

I hope they enjoy their 14u trophies. Not many of them have HS trophies or any memorabilia from later on.

Coach May, what you said about the obvious, obnoxious father of the pitcher is usually the rule with over used pitchers. They love the attention it provides the kid and the father.
I have seen it with two kids in our town. The hardest throwers being over used and throwing alot of junk at 10-12 both having TJ surgery at 15 and 16.
Dads are both nice guys but said nothing and even encouraged the way they were used.

Too bad for the young player that he pays a price for the father's ego/ignorance.

Too many people are clueless about how to use pitchers. The problem is, as Coach May has indicated, that people tend to live in the moment and seek the glory and adulation that goes with junior succeeding at a young age. The pitchers who tend to pitch at older ages are generally ones who didn't throw a ton when they were young, and some of the best never pitched until they were 14-16 years old, or older.

If all you care about is living vicariously through your kid when he's playing on a 60 foot diamond, and don't care what his arm health is like, then by all means wear him out before he gets to high school and you can always talk about what a stud he was in little league. On the other hand....

If you want him to have a long and hopefully successful playing career, then perhaps you should take the long view and remember that it is a lot more fun watching him pitch in college than anything he did on a little diamond. If you doubt what I say, ask yourself this question..."what did my kid do when he pitched the second week of June this past summer?" If you can't remember (and you almost certainly won't)then maybe you'll see that living in the moment isn't nearly as important as it seems at the time.

quote:

Originally posted by 06catcherdad:
some of the best never pitched until they were 14-16 years old, or older.

My son is left handed thrower. If I keep him out of pitching before HS and he makes it to the Fresh team as a hitter, he can still catch up as a pitcher? I want to keep him out of pitching as long as possible, but I'm afraid he wont get to pitch in HS unless he has some experience. The HS baseball scene in LA, CA is pretty competitive I hear.

Laball, if he has talent on the mound, why wouldn't he be able to pitch in high school? He can work on learning to pitch now, no reason to stay away from it. He doesn't need to pitch a lot of innings early, and should be able to attract the attention of his HS coaches if he has ability.