parental pitching injuries

 Us old guys are not immune from injury.  So it's definitely a possibility.  When I try to throw long toss with my son, my arm KILLS me.  Too many years of playing softball, throwing long toss, throwing BP etc...  I usually wind up rolling the ball to him.  You probably need to make a decision if it is worth going to get it looked at and fixed, or just leave it alone and deal with it.  UCLs are not needed for daily activity, it is mostly used in throwing.  I'm just leaving mine alone and dealing with it.  I don't have to throw with my son THAT much anymore as he's in college.  Besides, I think my shoulder is bad too.  Too much to deal with.  Yeah, I know, I'm falling apart at the seams.

Good luck to you.

Last year 0f my youth coaching career, not only was I throwing BP regularly to my regular season players and my all star team (We went pretty deep so the season lasted from mid February when we started practices into late July, when we finally got bounced -- so it was a very long one) but my son would want to hit more -- sometimes for an hour or even two -- after ever game in which he didn't hit well.  Like an idiot, I threw and threw and threw.    Didn't need surgery, but it took awhile for my shoulder (not elbow) to recover from all that..   

Glad the kid has finally moved beyond me.   Glad to be watching from the sidelines.   After he moved beyond rec league, they asked me to coach a couple of times, even though I didn't have a son in the league.   Thought hard about it.  It would have been fun, I think, to coach a team w/out my own kid on it.   No possible accusations of playing daddy ball and all that.  But memories of my aching shoulder and advancing age made me say no -- though I was definitely flattered that they bothered to ask me a couple of years running. 

My goal is to have TJ on my 60th birthday.  My shoulder limits me to 140' so long toss with my son is fairly interesting (he keeps the ball bucket and I just throw it back as far as I can and then he gets a new ball from the bucket).  Sometimes my elbow will hurt after throwing BP but it's always due to bad breaking ball mechanics. I don't worry so much about BP velocity as I can always move the L-screen up a bit.  What helped my elbow was a lesson with my son's pitching coach.  He helped me fix my mechanics so now I can throw a fair number of breaking balls to my son during BP.

Mom always has a laugh when my son and I both have our throwing arms iced up after a work out.

Lol! Us old fogies still going at it.

55 and still throwing to my kids periodically and like sowilson bouncing in some long toss. Not involved with the coaching anymore.

Not sure I could do 200 pitches every other day anymore.

That being said, my elbow never hurt. Been throwing curve balls since I was 10.

Although my shoulder throbs at night to this day whether I have recently thrown or not

Doesn't matter, if they want me to throw to them, I'll deal with the pain.

I am 57 and I can throw BP for an hour or so without difficulty, now that I only do it once a week or so.  I can't long toss very far, so I also roll. But the thing that bugs me most is how fast the ball gets to me now and how slow my reflexes are. I played catch with a couple of my kid's travel  teammates recently, and damn was that scary! One is a 6' 2" RHP who throws everything with a  natural break, the other is a 6' LHP  who sits at 80+MPH and has no idea where his fastball will end up when he lets it go.  My kid is smart enough to take it easy on me cause he knows I pay for his food, but not these guys.  

You guys remind me of the scene from Jaws where they're comparing injuries. "See that right there. Mary Ellen Moffit. She broke my heart."

I tore my rotor when I was forty-four in a softball game. I was talked into playing with a bunch of 25yos in a competitive environment. Several were former college baseball players. I proved to them I still had it. I was firing lasers from the outfield until "pop." I shouldn't have been throwing max speed given I wasn't throwing every day.

I rested my arm for a year instead of surgery. I threw with my kids for the next ten years with my arm on fire. The burn would go away after a day. I even threw BP. All of a sudden when my son was a junior in high school I couldn't throw across the infield anymore. My arm had finally completely died. I probably can't do more than lob a ball across a LL field now. 

My kid's not quite in the 80s, but I've pretty much had to give up throwing with him after nearly breaking my wrist twice slightly misjudging a catch. The reflexes aren't what they were 30 years ago, that's for sure.

The one thing that bugs me more than anything now is seeing a used baseball on a less than bright day.  I bought a dozen yellow baseballs for playing catch with my son, helps me see the ball - catching the ball with my face is no fun.

It's not just the Arm that goes as we get older.   My son was shut down for a few weeks (elbow strain) and did not travel with the team two weekends ago.  Instead, he came home for that weekend and yours truly played catch with him.  Yes, ice is needed for the arm...but the eyes don't adjust very well when you're pushing 50 and I took a breaking ball to the upper thigh.  Thankfully I took it there and not much higher, otherwise I would have been down for the count!

Try catching an 88 mph fastball with crazy movement!!  Couple of bruises on the shins from that.  Haha.  And the curveball is no fun either.

I was just playing easy catch and letting him break off a few.  I stopped squatting down and catching his pens a few years ago...I learned that lesson quick!

Now this thread I love. With school ball over 3-4 weeks ago and travel starting this weekend, I've been son's throwing partner. He pitches a ton in travel but none in HS. (Can't figure that one out but "oh well" keeps his arm fresh for summer.) So he's been on a long toss and short, flat ground program. My arm is getting better but my shins and ankles are done. No way I'm icing anything and have my wife make fun of me, I've got some pride left afterall. Glad to hear I shouldn't be embarrassed to max out around 140. Seems that's the 50 yr old's standard! I'll hold my head up high and proudly wear my bruises. 

Check this guy for sanity. When my son was a junior his velocity got higher than mid 80s. After a few days of preseason rain he asked me to catch him at an indoor facility. The previous year he was cruising 83, 84. Now it was more like 87 with better movement. I couldn't pick the first full speed pitch off the back wall. I dove for my life. I got up, pointed at the square on the netting. I told him to get a bucket of balls and throw to that. That was the end.

Like RJM I was catching son about a year and a half ago in an indoor facility with poor lighting for my 50+ year old orbs.  For whatever reason, his pitching instructor convinced me to catch him while sitting in a metal chair.  Major mistake!  The combination of poor lighting and the insane movement of his 80 mph two seamer (breaks late and sharp) were my undoing.  I reached for a ball that “wasn’t there”, it nailed my left nut to the chair, and my world suddenly went dark and very electric.  The way the kid tells it, I teetered for a few seconds before bellowing like a wounded water buffalo and rolling to the floor. Eventually I mustered enough pride to crawl out of the cage and collapse on the sideline, where I remained for a good 20 minutes, all the while struggling not to vomit.  The following day my nut was the size of a tangerine and damn near as colorful.  Undaunted, maybe unbalanced would be more accurate; I continued to catch his pens until just six month ago.  Along the way I’ve had my left ear split, was nearly concussed, and regularly modeled golf ball sized welts on both shins. The lengths we go to for our kids!

bsbl247 you crack me up. Knock that stuff off. 

I have a torn (or frayed) labrum that I just leave alone and don't throw much anymore. I still have my catchers glove that (very occasionally) I play catch with Jr (late summer before he was going back to school) but I can't even catch him on flat ground standing up, just too scary. The only place I can "long toss" with him is on the turf football field, which is his long toss followed by my "long roll".

RJM, I've done "the dive"  before. LOL 

It was my son's sophomore in HS year when I realize that I could no longer catch him. It was the inverse relationship between the speed of his fast ball and my eye sight. As the velocity went up my eye sight went down.

I quit catching my son as an eight grader. This past spring he just finished his freshman year. He is in low 80's now. I quit when I could tell that ball really began to move late and quickly. I am in my mid 40's now and the vision was beginning to go. The faster the pitching broke the more he began to toy with dad. He dropped a couple of curves on the boys and I said that's it I am done. Haven't caught him since. I still play catch and throw Bp, but will not catch his pitching. He still rides on me about when he would toy with me, I take it in stride, let him have his laughs.

   It has been a real joy to watch him grow as a player and I have never really saw his desire to play the game waver. And I never would have thought he would excel as a pitcher. But through the years this dad has had just as many baseball sized bruises as he has I think. I wore everyone with pride in my heart though.