Did anyone happen to catch the HBO Real Sports on pitching?
If not, they had a doctor on who has been doing tommy john sugeries to boys ages 11-13, enough to make someone sick.
He wants to start making coaches responsable and liable for such things.
I wanted to give my take on the subject and also get some of yours in return
I think its a joke some of the mentalities coaches have for young kids....11-13 year olds playing year round? Hello...most professional pitchers do not pick up a baseball from when the season ends until about december...how and why would anyone think a growing boy can maintain health during such a season. Another point of view this doctor had was these coaches are ruining these kids....for what? The coach may have a trophy on there mantle, meanwhile they hurt the future of a young kid. Example being Kerry Woods High school coach has a state ring, and he did so by throwing Wood a double header in one day over 100 pitches each game...Now was wood all for it, im sure, but its the coaches job to step in and say no....As that trophy hangs somewhere in Texas, Kerry Woods career has been filled with inconsistancy and injury and thats where most of it stems from.
I will use a friend of mines HS as another example...I believe over the last 9 years, 6-7 of the schools number ones have faced TJ surgery or arm problems out of hs...this is because a coach had the theory of "lets throw as many curveballs as possible" and constantly would have kids over the 100 pitch mark. I know some people have the attitude its not a coaches job to prepare kids for college, and that to me is very false.
Back to the show, it had the idea of outlawing curveballs until age 14-15 (a survery taken of MLB players stated that was the best age), if a kid were to throw a duece, he would be ejected...this doctor also wanted to mandate pitch limits as apposed to inning limits...which is a good point.
Will any of this ever happen? I hope so because it was sick to hear and to see what coaches do to kids, to see how desperate someone could be to win a pony league tournament and so on....Its time to stand up and make changes, there is no reason for an 11 year old boy to need MAJOR reconstructive survey
Now we all get caught in the heat of the momement, sure guys have throw on short rest and no rest at all in big situations....but at ages 11-13 I dont believe, in the big picture, there are big situations.
This is a very highly debated topic, and I personally have strong views on it because of the type of coaches I grew up with, ones that monitored pitches ata young age, encouraged and forced proper handling on off days and enough rest. I am not a win at any coact kind of guy, and maybe thats good, maybe thats bad....but would I do know is that I would never but a young childs health and risk to win a baseball game, because we all know that in the big picture, its not about wins and loses.
if you have any comments about my statements, please contact me at dwoinen@yahoo.com because I do not access this site very often
Looking forward to your comments
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