HBO: "Real Sports"

Great piece --- a must see for all youth league players, parents and coaches

Does anyone know when it will air next?

It is doubtful that most of us will get to see it. What were the reasons sited? You mentioned overuse. What were some of the examples used?

Schedule for Real Sports airings are:

Thu 3/17 05:30 PM HBO - EAST
Thu 3/17 11:50 PM HBO - EAST
Sat 3/19 10:00 AM HBO - EAST
Sun 3/20 01:00 PM HBO2 - EAST
Tue 3/22 12:00 PM HBO - EAST
Tue 3/22 08:00 PM HBO - EAST
Thu 3/24 04:00 PM HBO2 - EAST
Thu 3/24 11:30 PM HBO2 - EAST
Fri 3/25 06:00 AM HBO - EAST
Fri 3/25 03:30 PM HBO - EAST
Sun 3/27 11:30 AM HBO - EAST
Mon 3/28 08:30 AM HBO2 - EAST
Wed 3/30 07:00 PM HBO2 - EAST

SAVANNAH

They talke of kids under 12 throwing curveballs and the damage to bones, tendons and ligaments not yet fully developed

They talked of kids under 12 playing baseball all year 'round

They talked of tournaments and lack of player development for kids under 12 years of age

it is not just overruse, but throwing with bad mechanics. I have seen pitching instructors teach to throw acros the body and they wonder why people have arm troubles

DRIVEL

At the ages of 10 thru 12 it is curveballs, over use and bad mechanics all rolled into one.

Did you see the piece on TV last nicht ?

sorry TR, I was watching 24 and watching Jack Bauer battle terrorists. I see enough players arms abused on a daily basis

(I must preface this by saying I haven't seen the program)

Does anyone KNOW the truth?

Has anyone run a scientific medical test on a large universe of 12 year old pitchers (say several hundred) and divide them on whether or not they use curveballs extensively.
How do those groups turn out at age 18 or beyond?

Or has anyone surveyed kids who have TJ and other problems in HS and college to determine whether they used curves or pitched year-round more often that the average kid when they were in grade/middle school?

Can someone post a link to such studies?

mic

See the segment and then come back---it was very interesting and done by ortho surgeons with interviews from coaches on both the pro and youth level

Bottom line: the number of TJ operations has increased greatly for kids 10 to 14 years of age

And that does not include those who need it later on

quote:

Bottom line: the number of TJ operations has increased greatly for kids 10 to 14 years of age

Don't get HBO here. Of course TJ has increased. We now know it works fairly well and more surgeons know the technique.

Just about every category of "recreational" surgery is skyrocketing. **** jobs to facial to weight loss. Dentists are getting rich nowadays even though no one has cavities.

The surgeon interviewed on the program advocated that curveballs and sliders be outlawed by leagues until at least age 14. They interviewed this little 12 year old and his dad from California, I think. He was getting a TJ job.

His dad said basicly that "I was just trying to keep him up with all the other kids, my bad," by letting him pitch all the time. He's a catcher now.

They interviewed Bob Cluck with the Detroit Tigers. He said that "A bunch of youth coaches have trophies on the their shelves and alot of 14 year olds have already been cheated out of major league careers. It's getting ridiculous."

The program basicly blamed year round baseball, radar guns and parents pushing their kids toward the major leagues with a ten-fold increase in elbow surgery for 10-16 year olds in the past 10 years.

I think it is an overstatement saying that "alot of 14 yo have been cheated out of the major leagues." This is surely an assumption. Also it may need to figure in how many more kids are playing now than in the past plus better access to doctors and technology. i do agree about controlling the age cb is thrown.

Perhaps HBO should have delayed airing that segment until later in the year when they could have run the promos during the LLWS on ESPN.

Four kids a year, on average, die in baseball/softball related accidents too.

I used worry about that until I realized that far more were killed by their parents on the way home from a game after drinking beer at the park.

I'm still waiting for someone to post a link to a thorough medical study on pitching arm safety. Mostly I read this stuff from pitching coaches who claim they can prevent injuries by taking their course.

Injuries happen...we all know that. We also know more and more pitchers are throwing into their 40s...even in this era of radar, huge salaries, three season kids' baseball, etc.

I'd prefer scientific studies to anecdotal stories on HBO.

Gotta wonder when I hear people claim these things are more common than years ago. I doubt budding Cy Youngs or even Bob Fellers of yesteryear suffered from "rotator cuff" or "UCL" problems. Heck, all they (or even their doctor) knew was that one day they couldn't throw anymore.

Wasn't much of a problem when most pro pitchers were making $10,000 a year.

There wasn't anyone from HBO to do a story on it back then. And the medical community was more focused on things like TB and later polio.

Just my opinion. I refuse to take the stance that "a few soldiers must die" to win the war, so to speak. I am in favor of prohibiting breaking pitches until 14 or 15, mandatory pitch counts and innings per week.

That being said, a pitcher accepts the risks inherent to the position by taking the mound.

As a child, he's limited by the coaches as to when he comes out of the game. The pitchers responsiblity for an injury ends at a reasonable pitch count per game, per week. He has to do what the coach says.

Obviously some coaches and most parents don't know what is reasonable for most kids. Snapping off curves for 20 innings a week at 11 is just not reasonable.

If someone can't see the relationship between increased elbow surgery and the growth of travel leagues, showcases, and year round baseball in the sunbelt, its because they don't want to see it.

quote:

If someone can't see the relationship between increased elbow surgery and the growth of travel leagues, showcases, - - - it's because they don't want to see it.

agree, but there are alot of factors working here -
"a few soldiers ARE gonna die" - many more kids are playing more games - - these days, anyone can find a "select travel team" somewhere that will take them

in Feller's day there was "natural selection", where the "herd" thinned itself either thru injury or being left behind skills wise by hs - and only the srongest-healthiest-talented players survived
(Feller said he started thowing the cb at about 8 yrs old)

today the "herd" never gets thinned and in some cases grows each year with more rec, travel and showcase opportunities - private instruction starting at 5 yr old

players are tutored, patched, healed, and repaired who would have been long gone from the game years ago - - among them are some who got the right instruction, had the proper throwing program, followed pitch counts, did not throw cb's etc - and ther arms gave out anyway

my 2 cents

quote:

Originally posted by Dibble:
sorry TR, I was watching 24 and watching Jack Bauer battle terrorists. I see enough players arms abused on a daily basis

Any chance we could get Jack Bauer to pay a visit to some of those coaches who teach curve balls to 10 year olds?

Bee

I agree that the herd is larger, better trained and more are surviving only to get surgery that didn't exist 40 years ago. I just feel that there is plenty of room to improve standards, or enlightenment to the dangers of overuse and too early breaking balls.

The Little League pitching rules are a joke. They allow a kid to pitch every other game in a district, regional and state tournament, without counts.

I have not seen this HBO Show, but want to share something that I heard two years ago during a USA Baseball meeting.

The USA Baseball medical staff suggested, if not urged, coaches to have youngsters in the 10-14 age group play a variety of sports - not just baseball.

This allows them to work on different muscles; while trying to find the sport that they are best suited for. Also, there is less burnout when youngsters play different sports than if they play one sport all year round.

The above came from USA Baseball. It may be something to think about.

I also agree with Dad04 about the Little League pitching rules being a joke. The USA Baseball medical team suggested pitch counts and days rest (which I don't have with me now), but it was not pitchign every other day. It was like every fourth or fifth day at the most.

Jack Bauer not sure how good of coach he would make, he has a tendancy to shoot and punch out annoying people.

I know it is not worth the time I spend typing this because you old school guys will just keep repeating the same stuff over-and-over. But.....it is not curveballs. Curveballs thrown properly will not hurt anyone. Some coach posted he watched a kid throw 40% curveballs in a game. Thats also not proper. It is also bad baseball. First of all, even a curveball pitcher needs to set-up his breaking pitch with a "fastball" or something.A good curveball pitcher should only throw 15-25% curveballs max. It is time to put away the "push-of-the-rubber"; curveballs are bad stuff. Start reading Tom House, Leo Mazzone, etc. For the last time, arms are hurt by overuse, underuse, overexertion, not warming up and improper follow-through (bad mechanics). "Most arm injuries result not from throwing a particular pitch, but from overexertion, muscling up or trying to throw too hard in a given situation, or overextension." -Leo Mazzone

At last, a post I can agree with, Savannah.

Mazzone would agree that current scientific research won't prove a lot of these arguments one way or the other.

Increasingly, the threat of litigation, not science, is determining how pitchers pitch.

I will trust what I believe in along with what ortho doctors tell me--- you guys keep teaching curveballs to the youth players--that is your choice to do so-

Has nothing to do with being an old timer--has to do with being informed by solid ortho specialists


Do the right thing and litigation does not enter the picture

Speaking of old timers, do you guys remember hearing about all these arm problems when you were kids?

I don’t. I do remember throwing lots of curve balls, knuckle balls, screw balls, side arm, submarine and everything in between as a kid.

I also remember playing ball at the neighborhood park all day and then pitching in the league at night. My pitch count some days had to be in the several hundreds.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

Ask Sandy Koufax why his career ended so soon?

Ask me why I had my right shoulder operated on a few years back?

Ask those pitchers why they cannot comb there hair now.

SBK--your time will come when you need the Doctor to fix the shoulder--it happens to even the best

TR,

After 4 years of college baseball, I played competitively for over 15 more years. I can still throw mid 80's ok. My throwing arm may be a freak of nature but it's my nonthrowing shoulder that I can feel is going to need a little work.

Must be from either chasing the low outside pitch or more likely from having to scoop so much pig manure as a kid.

Lets agree to disagree on this one topic. TRhit is one of the better posters on this site. (I don't want to run him off)

I am not going anywhere-- my days in the off season would be very boring without you guys

Once the season begins I get to talk baseball with non cyber fans

Thursdays coming, so TTT

I hate curveballs for youth. I think it not only hinders a kids pitching ability it hurts their arms. Just my opinion. What I do think is kids that play more ball and work at the game year round are less likely to get hurt than kids that sit on their butts all year and then show up at tryouts and air it out trying to impress. Hey we play HS FEB - May. Then we play Legion or Select ball from June - August. Then we have our off season conditioning sessions untill Feb. There are periods of time we take off from throwing but we are doing plyos and strength training. Ive been coaching HS baseball for several years and knock on wood we have yet to have a TJ or a Rotator problem. Now maybe we have just been lucky probaly so. But I would rather have a well conditioned arm on opening day than an arm that has been working a remote controll or a video game.

What you consider to be an acceptable percentage of curveballs during the course of an outing at the H.S. varsity level?

MT07LHP

What year are you speaking of-- IMO it would vary from soph to junior to senior years--I don't like to see until at least the junior year and then used only sparsely--You actually do not see many great curveballs in HS

TR, say soph year regardless of whether CB is great or average...

20% at most--that is my feeling--realistically I would not liek to see any at that point of development-- change up and various fastballs will suffice for me at that point in time

TR, do you feel that size of the player would also play into this?

Yes I do-- someboys at that age are more physically able to handle it than others

There is a boy who my son has played ball with since he was 7 yo. He started throwing a curve ball when he was 10yo and was taught the correct way to throw it. But most important he never threw more than 75 pitches in a game and wasnt used every other game unless there were more than 4 days between games. Maybe we were lucky and had three or four quality pitchers during our travel existance, but that kid is still throwing the same nasty stuff as when he was 10 and has NEVER had arm troubles.

Now on my sons HS team there were more hurt arms then i have ever seen, but by some parents admission it was strictly overuse and two were not curveball pitchers.

Its not the curveball that hurts arms, its overuse and improper mechanics, taught by overzealous coaches who just want to win at all costs.