To see some disturbing pictures of a VA legion pitcher going down after a pitch in the recent American Legion World Series held in Cedar Rapids, IA visit this link …
Pitcher goes down after a pitch
quote:Originally posted by Coach Milburn:
To see some disturbing pictures of a VA legion pitcher going down after a pitch in the recent American Legion World Series held in Cedar Rapids, IA visit this link …
Pitcher goes down after a pitch
Coach Milburn,
Thanks for the link, which brought me to the thread regarding the discussion in another thread. I was disgusted to see that pitcher lying in pain on the mound.
Interesting about the legalities of this whole issue. Interesting about the waiver of liability issue.
I don't think anyone can argue that we are putting our young pitchers at risk for injuries, whether at age 12 or later on. Pitching abuse was rampid years ago in college, with Boyd Nation's pitch count reports I do believe coaches have realized they can't put their pitchers or programs at risk (don't send your son to XYZ U, they use up their pitchers).
I think it is about time someone steps in and holds ALL coaches accountable for their poor decisions, LL, HS, college.Parents as well. The parent that allows their son to be subject to abuse, is just as responsible, I don't buy that parents are unaware of what's going on, unless they can't read or have no TV because it is being discussed everywhere these days.
Hard to say if at 12 a coach has ruined a child's future in baseball, but it is apparent these injuries are taking place everyday. And regardless of him being a future prospect, having him not being able to play for months or a year is robbing him of a valuable experiences as a child.
I know many of you read BA, there was an article about scouts being disappointed that they were unable to see many of the top pitchers pitch in the All Star game. Due to rainouts and other circumstances, many teams were backed up, coaches left decisions up to the pitchers as to what they wanted to do. Mine had pitched an inning on friday and was due for a start monday. After a long season he was close to 100 innings and was beginning to feel tired by August. He had decided that to pitch that day was not in his best interest. He didn't always see it that way, but fully understands the implications involved. Turns out the game never went full innings due to lack of pitchers not wanting to pitch, and a position player (Matt LaPorta) was used as a pitcher. We were not disappointed in the least not to see him pitch, he had made a very important decision for himself with guidance from smart coaches who know they are not going to hurt a pitcher and have to answer to the college coaches who send their players there.
I am very grateful that at an early age we established guidelines with coaches about son's pitching and explained the implications down the road to him over and over of possible injury ruining a career if he wished to play ball in college or as a pro or just in HS for that matter. I am also very happy that at an early age he played in a league that put restrictions on innings pitched and no curveballs.
If more parents took this approach, from very early on, educate themselves as to possible injuries with high pitch counts and sliders and curveballs there would be less and less injury. In our son's senior year, we had to go to the AD early spring because the coach began his season with a very high pitch count, I posted about that and got criticism, that was three years ago. I doubt if I posted that today anyone would say anything, so we have come a long way since then in realizing what is going on out there is WRONG!
I am hoping that even if one parent of a pitcher comes to the HSBBW and reads about the possibilities of injuries, they will think twice about allowing their players to sacrifice their future for an allstar game or a chnace to win a championship, at 12, 15, or 20. Thus we may have helpedone player to avoid injury.