Curveballs

quote:

Originally posted by BobbleheadDoll:
OCB you seem to make a lot assumptions based on you limited knowledge and experience.
***-U-ME is what you get from assuming.

I have 2 Friends I just watched play elite senior BB. One was the closer for Arkansas LR and the other hadn't pitched in years until recently. He just got back from playing pro ball in Italy after D1 college. Both these guys threw FBs/CU and were prospects hitting 85 at 14yo. Neither threw CBs except on a rare occasion. Both had at least 2 major surgeries on their throwing arm. Both were spectacular throwing complete games against college and ex pros. The one was in the low 90s. Don't they teach "Scientific Methods" in your schools? I don't know why people keep conclusions based on limited knowledge and experience.
Even DR Andrews won't draw that conclusion.

BobbleheadDoll, I know Im just another user name on a forum and you dont know me from Sam Brown. However my experience I would bet exceeds that of yours based on some of your comments I have read.

I not only played high school and college baseball, but I have also coached at those levels. Now am I claiming to know everything about the game of baseball...NO, I do however have my areas of expertise and I know a hell of a lot more than the average person.

Im not here to debate this. I have my opinions, you have yours. I will never change yours nor you mine. However if ONE parent who has a child playing youth baseball reads this and then decides to not allow their 10,11 or 12 year old to throw another curve ball, some good will have come out of my post.

On a side note. My son doesnt pitch and even though I disagree with kids throwing curve balls, I appreciate those dads and coaches that allow their kids too. It only helps my son as a hitter learn to recognize and adjust to those pitches at an early age.

quote:

I will never change yours nor you mine. However if ONE parent who has a child playing youth baseball reads this and then decides to not allow their 10,11 or 12 year old to throw another curve ball, some good will have come out of my post.

Based on your comments you don't know about arm injuries and continue the fear mongering. You are right I don't know you and have to judge you on your statements.

quote:

On a side note. My son doesnt pitch and even though I disagree with kids throwing curve balls, I appreciate those dads and coaches that allowing their kids too. It only helps my son as a hitter to learn to recognize and adjust to those pitches at an early age.

Amen to that brother!!

quote:

You have a lot of dads out there coaching travel ball that are clueless about anything mechanical with baseball. They may think they know something because they played a little high school baseball but they dont. Then you have the dads / coach that has the win at all cost mentality that will allow a kid to throw 100 + pitches an outing at 10 and 11 yrs old.

OCB, I think you hit the crux of the matter right here. The problem, you are saying, is that because a kid is effective, he winds up being overused. If a 12 yr. old were throwing only a fastball 75 mph, he would be very effective and would be subject to being overused. Does that mean he should not throw his fastball so he won't be so effective and therefore won't be overused? I say no. Regardless of what pitches a kid throws or how effective he is, coaches and parents need to be responsible and not overuse the kids.

quote:

This is the 3rd kid pitcher I have seen since Feb of this year go out of youth baseball with arm problems. Im not talking about 14 or 15 year olds. I am talking this is the 3rd kid I personally know of from ages 10 to 11. The common factor they all have in common is they all threw a lot of curve balls.

Could it be that all of them threw way to much in general and did not get the proper rest between outings.

quote:

I understand your pain, disappointment, and anger. The fact of the matter is that some kids just break. Some sooner than others. Even with flawless technique. But as yu pointed out, some kids are overused.

Daque, I agree with you there. All kids are different. We have had kids on our teams over the years that have had arm problems that threw MUCH less than kids on the team who threw more. It was just their makeup. Neither of my sons has ever missed a day of school as a result of being sick. One just finished his freshman year of HS and one just finished 7th grade. Just the makeup of the kids. Nothing we ever did to protect them from it.

That does not mean you go out and just let kids throw till their arm falls off. You just make sure they don't pitch past the point of fatigue and make sure they get plenty of rest between pitching outings. I don't think pitch types matter.

quote:

This is a great kid with a lot of potential.The kid had great location/control, 65 to 67 mph fastball, good change up, wicked curve. The parents showed up to the tournament yesterday with a doctors report.

The kid cant play baseball again without Tommy John. When the parents showed me the report the kid was standing their with tears in his eyes. This really ****ed me off.

65-67 mph for an 11u team is way above average. To me it seems that either the mph reading is incorrect or that is the problem itself. From what i have seen, a 10-11 year old travel team "good velocity" pitcher throws on average in the low 60's. Very rarely do you see an eleven year old pitcher throwing upper 60's. But, when you do, that is pretty much all they throw because their velocity is good enough to just move side to side and up and down in the strike zone and fool most batters. At that velocity you claim i have a hard time believeing that he would need to throw a slow curveball 20 mph slower 50% of the time.

ASMI did a medical study on the amount of torque and stress put on the arm joints and found that it was the fastball, not the curveball that puts the most pressure on the joints of arms. They also found that the leading cause of injury leading up to tj surgery was overuse and fatigue with 90% of the patients reporting joint pain leading up to the injury. They also found that there were healthy kids who also threw braking balls who didn't need surgery. The difference between the healthy and the injured was always "fatigue" when pitching. Breaking pitches have not been linked directly to injury.

On another point- a 45 mph curveball for a kid who can bring upper 60's fastballs is not going to hurt a kids arm at all unless he is doing something very strange with his arm!

I would just about bet that the torque required to damage that kids arm was not because of a 45 mph breaking pitch! I would almost guarentee that it was damaged due to overuse, velocity, and pitching through pain all due mostly to the kids abnormally high velocity on his fastball for his age.

Youth requiring tj surgery all have two things in common- they all throw high velocity with the fastball and throw while fatigued. The breaking pitch gets blamed for it all the time though.

quote:

Originally posted by Daque:

quote:

...so you just eliminate what MAY be a problem until the pitcher gets older.

Following your logic, since the shoulder and elbow motion are the same for both a fast ball and a curve, kids should not pitch unless it is in softball. Until what age can they begin pitching baseball? Machine pitch until the full sized diamond?

Daque,
Son began pitching at 8. If a chance to do over, most likely would wait until he was 11,12,13.

Gingerbreadman makes a good point, however, here in FL, kids do all sorts of stuff they might not do in other places, play year round, throw pretty hard for their age, throw lots of CB. I would have thought much of that would change with all the info on overuse. Lots of very hard throwers throwing everything and parents lovin it, because Junior gets the kids out. Seen it with my own eyes, trust me. So I got to beleive some of what was said is very true.
If I remember correctly, our kids pitched little conmpared to others, a few innings at a time, stronger hitting team, learning from those high velo guys with CB's.

TPM: Every time I get into a discussion with a person regarding the curve and kids, I first define what we are talking about. It is very rare to see an 11 year old be able to throw a proper curve and have it be effective on the small diamond. The reasons are twofold. First there is not enough distance for the ball to break downwards and second at that age they cannot get enough rotational velocity due to immaturity.

The opening question I ask is what is the rotation of the pitch we are talking about? When I watch one of these touted kids it is invariably rotating at about 45 degrees. That pitch, the slurve or LL curve, does indeed stress the elbow.

Like you, I doubt the velocities quoted in this portion of the string unless the kid is an early physical bloomer. Like you, I believe the problem is overuse. In fact, I will state that if the kids were playing less than 40 games per season and only playing twice a week they could throw with the worst technique possible and not hurt their arms.

It is sad that this story is repeated in many places every year, more in warm climates. But, as I said ad nauseum, it is impossible to protect a child from his parents.

Finally, remember that education is the solution only to the degree that ignorance is the problem. So long as parents keep drinking the Kool Aid and ambitious coaches keep shoveling the ****, there will continue to be damaged kids like we are talking about. And the curve is not the culprit if thrown properly. That is a huge caveat. Kids do not throw enough to strengthen their arms but they pitch way too much.

Daque, The volocities are correct. This is a big kid also I believe it was mentioned here that in Florida we have a lot of kids doing things that most kids in other parts of the country dont do.

This weekend we had a 10 yr old throwing 70mph. This kid is a freak of nature, but he is 6'2 about 160lbs. The kid wont be 11 until August. Another example. My son at 9 yrs old was hitting 85mph fastballs, its not normal but there are some kids here in Florida that are just freaks of nature.

I agree that overuse is another issue but when you combine overuse with throwing that many curve balls, in my opinion nothing good is going to come of it.

OCB: It is apparant that you do not accept that overuse is the main issue and that the curve is. Of course that is exactly te position that I would expect to be proclaimed by those in favor of lots of games. While I do not know your position on the number of games to be played and the amount of down time from baseball to be observed, I do know that you are wrong on properly thrown curve balls.

As an aside, pitch counts are not absolutes and may never be as they are a work in progress. They are the best we have at the moment other than for the protection, such as it is, given the children by the significant adults in their lives. That is sorely lacking much of the time. I have nothing further to say that will convince you and so will respond no more as we are merely spinning our wheels.

Daque,
So do you say to those that insist they taught their young pitchers to throw, "curveballs the right way", it's really impossible to do that (pardon me I am not a coach, just a parent)? Or those LL CB ARE harmful?

We seem to be in agreement. I admit, parents are the worst culprits, parents MUST educate themselves before their sons BEGIN pitching, not years later. At 8,9,10,11 my son played with coaches who limited much of their time on the mound, parents complained, coach said go play somewhere else.
But I do admit they throw hard here, but most of them will never see a HS game, or college game.Especially when you are taking readings for 9 and 10 year olds, that was never a thought in our minds, you could tell who was throwing hard and who wasn't. But often parents just like to say, "hey man, my kid was pumping 70 this weekend'. Or, "hey my kid mowed them down with his curveball".
Definetly overuse and multiple leagues and year round baseball hurts kids, but if husband had it to do ovr, he's do it the same way, only waiting a bit longr to take the mound.

Don't be too hard on OCB.

OCB,
How many games do you guys play down here.
Also how can you be so opposed to CB, but thank those that throw them, seems weird.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
Daque,
So do you say to those that insist they taught their young pitchers to throw, "curveballs the right way", it's really impossible to do that (pardon me I am not a coach, just a parent)? Or those LL CB ARE harmful?

We seem to be in agreement. I admit, parents are the worst culprits, parents MUST educate themselves before their sons BEGIN pitching, not years later. At 8,9,10,11 my son played with coaches who limited much of their time on the mound, parents complained, coach said go play somewhere else.
But I do admit they throw hard here, but most of them will never see a HS game, or college game.Especially when you are taking readings for 9 and 10 year olds, that was never a thought in our minds, you could tell who was throwing hard and who wasn't. But often parents just like to say, "hey man, my kid was pumping 70 this weekend'. Or, "hey my kid mowed them down with his curveball".
Definetly overuse and multiple leagues and year round baseball hurts kids, but if husband had it to do ovr, he's do it the same way, only waiting a bit longr to take the mound.

Don't be too hard on OCB.

OCB,
How many games do you guys play down here.
Also how can you be so opposed to CB, but thank those that throw them, seems weird.

Daque, I am not saying or suggesting that overuse wont hurt your arm. It will and does. However curve balls in my opinion at a young age only increase the risk of arm injury.

TPM: Im in Florida just like you. You know that we play all year round. My son as of this weekend has played 158 games in 11 months. As for me being opposed to CBs but thanking those who allow their kids to throw them.

That is just my way of saying. I know these parents are never going to listen and in my opinion are only putting their childs health at risk and by them doing so only helps my son see pitches that he honestly shouldnt be seeing at this age but in turn will make him better prepared later in his baseball career.

I would honestly not like to see kids this age throw CBs but I know that isnt going to happen.

quote:

Originally posted by OCB:

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
Daque,
So do you say to those that insist they taught their young pitchers to throw, "curveballs the right way", it's really impossible to do that (pardon me I am not a coach, just a parent)? Or those LL CB ARE harmful?

We seem to be in agreement. I admit, parents are the worst culprits, parents MUST educate themselves before their sons BEGIN pitching, not years later. At 8,9,10,11 my son played with coaches who limited much of their time on the mound, parents complained, coach said go play somewhere else.
But I do admit they throw hard here, but most of them will never see a HS game, or college game.Especially when you are taking readings for 9 and 10 year olds, that was never a thought in our minds, you could tell who was throwing hard and who wasn't. But often parents just like to say, "hey man, my kid was pumping 70 this weekend'. Or, "hey my kid mowed them down with his curveball".
Definetly overuse and multiple leagues and year round baseball hurts kids, but if husband had it to do ovr, he's do it the same way, only waiting a bit longr to take the mound.

Don't be too hard on OCB.

OCB,
How many games do you guys play down here.
Also how can you be so opposed to CB, but thank those that throw them, seems weird.

Daque, I am not saying or suggesting that overuse wont hurt your arm. It will and does. However curve balls in my opinion at a young age only increase the risk of arm injury.

TPM: Im in Florida just like you. You know that we play all year round. My son as of this weekend has played 158 games in 11 months. As for me being opposed to CBs but thanking those who allow their kids to throw them.

That is just my way of saying. I know these parents are never going to listen and in my opinion are only putting their childs health at risk and by them doing so only helps my son see pitches that he honestly shouldnt be seeing at this age but in turn will make him better prepared later in his baseball career.

I would honestly not like to see kids this age throw CBs but I know that isnt going to happen.

Its funny I see this posts today...Just left Doctore for my 17 year old lefty high school pitcher.Has nsaty change-up, good slider and a fastball. Adding the good ole curve ball over the last 12 months is the source of his tender elbow.He complained when only uses his curve. According to the Dr. main reason is improper mechanics and poor warmups. Needless to say, he will be in physical therapy for the next 3 weeks.I guess my point is no matter what age if your not doing it properly it can wear your elbow.....

158 games in 11 months, pretty much sums up why kids get hurt.
We live in FL but never gave into the year round thing when player was younger, too many other things to do.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
158 games in 11 months, pretty much sums up why kids get hurt.
We live in FL but never gave into the year round thing when player was younger, too many other things to do.

Yes there are other things to do and we do them but when your child would rather play ball than go to Disney, the beach or anything else for that matter, why prevent him from playing or doing something he loves.

Young growing bodies need rest, it is even recommended that young players participate in other sports, the reason being that repitition can result in injury. Do your homework, this pertains to all sports.
Who's the boss, you are your player?

quote:

...why prevent him from playing or doing something he loves.

Because you are the parent, the adult. Because you should know better but are ignoring the information. It is out there. Check with the ASMI site if you care.

Bottom line is parents and coaches are looking for justification of too many games and it is easier to blame the curve ball than the overuse when a kid goes down. The insidious thing is that today's injury maay not show up until a couple of years later.

quote:

TPM: Im in Florida just like you. You know that we play all year round. My son as of this weekend has played 158 games in 11 months.

Wow, I'm a big travel guy and live in Georgia. 158 games is a ton if you ask me. My son at 13 and 14 played between 60 and 70 games in the spring and summer and 25 -30 (maybe) in the fall. That is at most 100 games. I thought that was a lot. Don't know how I would keep pitching to a reasonable level with that many games.

If the hurt kid is one of yours, I would say overuse is without doubt an issue.

quote:

65-67 mph for an 11u team is way above average.

Way above average, but not unusual. We had two on our team. One was at 70 and in the upper 70's as a twelve year old. Before puberty, a kid can be physically plus or minus three years of his chronological age. An 11U pitcher could be physically fourteen years old. When my son was twelve he was not physically twelve. He was probably physically ten years old. He was five feet, ninety-five pounds. He threw mid sixties. Because he threw hard relative to his size I was very cautious regarding the amount of mound time he received.

quote:

But often parents just like to say, "hey man, my kid was pumping 70 this weekend'. Or, "hey my kid mowed them down with his curveball".

I remember asking one of these parents when their son was ten where they would send him to high school. My question wasn't in relation to baseball. It was only because the parents attended public schools and appeared to prefer a Catholic education for their kids. Privates, Catholics and private Catholics are very popular in our area. The response was "Whomever offers the biggest scholarship for pitching." The kid was a 9U to 11U hero pitching nine innings a weekend. He blew his arm out at twelve.

My son (sixteen) who pitched one inning a week at nine, two at ten and three at eleven will be pitching in an 18U scout league game this week. And this offseason heading into junior year, we'll make velocity a training focus for the first time. If you try to sprint your kid in a marathon, he won't make it.

quote:

Yes there are other things to do and we do them but when your child would rather play ball than go to Disney, the beach or anything else for that matter, why prevent him from playing or doing something he loves.

My son loves ice cream. I won't let him eat it until he gets sick. It's my responsibility as a parent. However, now he's old enough to know better.

At your son's age he should be taking off a few months from throwing even if he's not pitching. He should be playing other sports to work his muscles, bones and tendons in different motions.

When my son was a preteen he played about 120 baseball, basketball and s****r games. A sports ortho surgeon said the total would be risky if it was 120 games in one sport. The problem is often the damge starts at a young age, but it's not visible for a few more years when the damage is extensive. Do some research on Repetitive Stress Syndrome in young athletes.

There is no correct answer to playing enough vs. playing too much. I am a proponent of playing other sports, but we have seen "many" who play only baseball pretty much year around who are in the Big Leagues. Even stars in the Big Leagues!

Results are all we have to go on. Both ways have produced excellent results.

quote:

Way above average, but not unusual. We had two on our team. One was at 70 and in the upper 70's as a twelve year old. Before puberty, a kid can be physically plus or minus three years of his chronological age. An 11U pitcher could be physically fourteen years old. When my son was twelve he was not physically twelve. He was probably physically ten years old. He was five feet, ninety-five pounds. He threw mid sixties. Because he threw hard relative to his size I was very cautious regarding the amount of mound time he received.

I agree with you there. My son at 11 threw like 61-65mph and was one of the faster pitchers around. There were like two other kids his age that threw as hard and one throwing much harder- probably 5-7 mph harder.

It happens.

There is no such thing as playing enough, only playing too much.

People get sucked into the, "keeping up with the Jonses" mentality as they are told that you must play a gazillion games per season if you want to make it to the bigs or to get a college scholarship.

The ultimate determining factor separating the players from the wannabes is innate ability and that was determined at conception. Skills can be taught quickly at any age with a willing player. Passion must be there along with the mental side of the game. And no HS coach will care about how many plastic trophies are gathering dust at home or your small diamond resume'. They only care about what you can bring them now. Those on the bubble may fool a coach who cannot recognize talent but only for a year.

Skills are learned in practices, not games. It matters not where you learn the skills be it LL or travel. I understand the competition is fierce making the HS teams there in FL but if a player doesn't make the HS team and if he has the innate ability playing rec. he will be found by the college coaches. HS ball is becoming irrelevent.

Of course, it is impossible to determine how much is too much, just like pitch counts. One size does not fit all but until the coaches and parents quit abusing the kids it is the best we have.

In my opinion, and that is all it is, anything above 60 games per season is too much. How nuts is it to bring 11 year olds to a team as hired guns? Just so you can play in excess on the weekend?

It is a diffrent world where the emphasis is on, "I" and no longer on, "team." I am sad about that for the love of the game. With the present mindset I do not believe I could go back to coaching again unless it was rec. At this age it should be about learning and having fun and post game snacks. Beyond that is without purpose for me.

Just thought I would put my 2 cents in.My son is 12
y/o playing his last year of LL Majors. He also plays travelball with a total of 75 games a year.
I have tried my best to keep him from throwing a curveball.He considers his primary position to be catcher and has a desire to play college baseball.
Last week he had 17 K's in a LL game using a Fastball and a changeup.He has great control and changes speed and location quite effectively.I agree
with the the theory that a kid should wait until he
is throwing from 60'6" before throwing a curveball
I also believe in 3 months or more months arm rest every year.Just my opinion and my son has not had even a sore arm so far.

If you want to see a sore arm let him keep catching.
My son played all year and on as many as 4 teams during the season. He just graduated D1 and never had a sore arm. CBs were his main pitches. Notice CBs plural.
He is currently in a study by (UNC Chapel Hill) on arm injury. They called me and guess what they are finding ?

bobblehead

Why do say that about catchers arms?

TR catchers throw from awkward positions and put much more stress on their arms than pitchers do. They also match throw for throw with pitchers. (also plural)
I have seen more catchers make that rushed bad throw and injure their arms than pitchers. Pitchers with great mechanics have a deceleration phase at the end of the pitch that helps reduce the shock to the shoulder and elbow.

I would also believe the physical demands of catching cause the player to throw many more times after fatigue sets in. When is the last time you saw a coach pull a catcher because he is out of gas ?

quote:

When is the last time you saw a coach pull a catcher because he is out of gas ?

How many youth coaches even recognize fatigue in their players? How many youth coaches know anything about teaching catching skills? How many youth coaches know the difference between the primary and secondarty catching positions?

I must add that the while the pitcher and catcher throw approxiately the same number of times, the catcher does so with much less intensity. But in both cases it is the legs that are first to go, not the arms.

Ok, so why not tell us what they are finding?
MRI, contrast MRI, what did they show?

It is true that catchers throw back after every pitch but they are not throwing 95 MPH nor throwing curves and sliders---

It is the catchers knees that are of concern to me

For what it is worth, I just found out this week that 3 hard throwing 14-15 year old guys who have thrown curveballs since they were little, have just had their baseball career delayed by 9 months to forever with blown elbows. I know all of them and their parents. I know many hard throwing guys who have never thrown a curve that are doing just fine and many soft throwing guys who throw 90% curveballs that are just fine.

Maybe the key is hard throwers should wait until they are finished growing. Soft throwers don't matter much because they don't put much stress on the arm on any pitch.

I don't know but it has really saddened me and made me even more protective of my son's arm. No curveballs until he can vote.

quote:

Originally posted by Doughnutman:
For what it is worth, I just found out this week that 3 hard throwing 14-15 year old guys who have thrown curveballs since they were little, have just had their baseball career delayed by 9 months to forever with blown elbows. I know all of them and their parents. I know many hard throwing guys who have never thrown a curve that are doing just fine and many soft throwing guys who throw 90% curveballs that are just fine.

Maybe the key is hard throwers should wait until they are finished growing. Soft throwers don't matter much because they don't put much stress on the arm on any pitch.

I don't know but it has really saddened me and made me even more protective of my son's arm. No curveballs until he can vote.

I'll bet these pitchers have dominated since they were younger and have been pitched too much. Pitching too much, not curves is the main problem with youth pitchers.

fastball v. curve

Doughnutman,
Good post.
There are many who will argue that throwing CBs at an early age is good, those that will argue it's bad.
Not really sure what the answer is to something that has been discussed here over and over.

The only thing is common sense, and being able to, as a parent, control what you can while you can.

You would lose that bet RJM. All of the kids played 9 months out of the year. One of them rarely pitched except LL and Freshman ball. One was overused in my opinion his entire life and one was just average in use, throwing once or twice a month except for freshman ball where they all pitched weekly. But they all threw hard with curves as 14-15 year olds.

And I don't like studies done in a controlled environment for something like pitching. Kids overthrow when they really want to get an out. They throw curves harder with more spin with bases loaded than they do in a lab. More speed and more spin = worse mechanics and more snap.

Kids are going to really snap them when they want an out. I have seen it many, many times.

quote:

I'll bet these pitchers have dominated since they were younger and have been pitched too much. Pitching too much, not curves is the main problem with youth pitchers.

Amen and Amen!

How many studies do you think has been done on fastball versus curveball in reference to arm health?

From what I have gathered I have found some interesting things-

Almost every "good" youth pitcher throws curveballs to compliment his fastball.

All youth pitchers at some point or another get fatigued and sore in a game during the season whether the coach notices it or not. Some way more than others!

Every good pitcher throws more than the bad pitcher!!!

Almost every youth pitcher at some point in the season will have a drop in velocity and a spike in velocity that always gets noticed by "everybody".

Almost every good pitcher will at some point in the season not warm up properly before throwing or will say he is ready not truly knowing his body.



From all that I gather, kids don't know very much about their arm health other than the "feeling good/not so good meter" in their body and often times will lie about the meter! Coaches and parents need to be more aware of how they are pitching, the actual pitching counts (set a limit), and above all- realize the importance of good arm health, proper warm-ups and conditioning before and after pitching.


Arms are like engines- they need to get warmed up to do well along with not pushing too hard too often when they do get warmed up! I have seen many an engine blow (business I am in) due to improper care and overuse. No difference in kids!

quote:

And I don't like studies done in a controlled environment for something like pitching. Kids overthrow when they really want to get an out. They throw curves harder with more spin with bases loaded than they do in a lab. More speed and more spin = worse mechanics and more snap.

Kids are going to really snap them when they want an out. I have seen it many, many times.

OK, they are also going to throw their fastball harder, so the fastball is still harder on the arm. I just don't see how people (in general) can basically have an attitude of prove it to me that curve balls are not the cause of injuries. Then studies come out, both from the noted source above, as well as ASMI saying that the curveball places less stress on the elbow and shoulder than the fastball and people just say "I don't care what the studies say, curveballs cause injuries".

Everyone can come up with examples for both sides. Like someone said earlier, some kids just break. There is no completely safe way to throw a baseball. Don't pitch past the point of fatigue and make sure you get plenty of rest between outings. This is the common thread through all research and discussion. This will give you the best chance of going as far as you can. There are no guarantees no matter what you do.

Don't forget the "DOLL" has been saying this for years.
The UNC study had similar conclusions to ASMI. CBs No link to arm injuries after studying thousands of college pitchers.

I'll give my lowly opinion. I was caught trying to throw a "Curveball" (Read : LL curve twisting my wrist / elbow to get it to move) when I was 10 by my Dad. He told me he would teach me to throw a REAL Curveball. The deal was I only threw it with him, until I had it down, and I always threw more FB's than CB's when pitching. He taught me a 12 to 6 breaking ball.
I threw the same pitch, granted I had several different versions of it (different grips / velocities) from the time I was 10 until I was 19. When I hurt my arm pitching as an incoming FR in college.

The injury was caused from playing HS football. Turns out dislocating your shoulder multiple times playing middle LB isn't exactly healthy for your pitching arm.

I can still throw the CB. In fact before I was hurt, when my ARM was tired, I turned to the curveball. It didn't tax my arm as much as a properly thrown FB.

Mechanics are everything with the curve. And I CRINGE whenever I hear some say "snap" in the same sentence as Curve.

But I sort of find it amusing that the person railing against the evils of the Curveball is a Father who has a son who played 150+ games in less than a calendar year. Of course your son isn't pitching that much right? And how many practices IN ADDITION to those 150+ games?

So the 11 year old who need TJ surgery...how many games has he played in the past year? Two years? How many of those did he pitch?

You don't mention that. But you blame the CB right out of the gate?

Overuse is overuse is overuse. And no matter what position he plays, 150 + games in a year is too much for a pre teen.

My 12 year old, with travel ball, rec ball, All Stars and including travel ball moving to the big field this Fall...he will end up around 70 games when we hang up the cleats this Fall. And he will play basketball, and NONE of my players are allowed to throw a baseball for AT LEAST a full month.

NOTE: I don't want to be a hypocrite...if our AS team makes it to the LL World Series, that number of games could approach 80.

What non-baseball parents don't get, and many coaches either don't care about, or they are oblivious to, is the fact kids are pitching in multiple leagues.

I have a "travel" team of 12 year olds. They all play rec, and All Stars for a few leagues. A few played MS ball. They report to me how much they have pitched every week.

The thing I have been noticing lately, again in my lowly opinion, is that kids at the same size, age as when I grew up are throwing MUCH harder on average. Sometimes I think these pre-puberty guys can actually get to the point where their pitching mechanics are "too good" for the pre-puberty bodies and things 'give' and injury occurs.