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I see quite a few catchers who tape their wrists. What is it for??? Wrist support is my best guess. Also is there a special way to tape them as to not cut off circulation? Thanks for the help and sorry for the dumb question.
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My son tapes his wrist for two reasons, first for support and second to help protect his wrist when he drops down for a ball in the dirt. The inside of the wrist, when bruised, can take a long time to heel. he also wears a 3 or 4 inch forearm band just below the elbow toward the wrist again to protect his forearm from balls kicking up from the dirt.
As you can guess, he catches for two pitchers that throw alot of hard breaking balls in the dirt.
Mostly a mental thing or as Bulldog19 indicates --- for show. I remember when my son was in high school he injured his wrist while catching. It was taped and within a week every catcher within 50 miles were taping their wrist. There have been times where a player has needed to reinforce the wrist and tape works quite well but ----

Baseball is a mental game and many "things" players do are based on superstition and rituals. We could start a new thread on this topic. Some players even write messages on their tape.
quote:
Toldforthis, what exactly does your son wear for forearm protection? I've seen these forearm guards and wondered if they would be restricting or even hot into the warmer months...

The only thing my son wears is a 4" wristband on his catching hand.


I wore a 4" wristband that had a built-in pad for catching. It wasn't real hard or real thick, but it did help. I don't recall ever taping my wrists. And taping your wrists is not going to do much in the way of padding...
I looked where I had gotten mine from, and I can't find what I had. They were specifically for catchers and I had two of them. Sometimes I'd wear one on either wrist/forearm and other times I'd just wear one on the left arm. I didn't like it on the right wrist too much because it would slide down and mess with my hand...
quote:
Originally posted by Bulldog 19:
Definitely not what I wore.. mine looked like simple wrist bands.



I bought a pair for my young catching son. They are black wrists bands about 4" long and they have a piece of plastic inside of half of the band.I picked them up at Sports Authority. I checked their website and do not see them posted. They are in the baseball section of the stores here.
Last edited by Coach Atl
That evoshield stuff is nice.

Little League here required all pitchers to wear a heart guard and the one they supplied was very restricting (it strapped around the neck and attached to the front of the pants), so we purchased the one from evoshield. He said it was comfortable and not at all restricting.

I'll have to look into getting him the wrist guard.
You guys are all wrong....when I was a catcher I taped my wrists for one extremely important reason....because Javy Lopez taped his wrists!

Alright, all kidding aside...I also had major problems with bruised forearms and wrists, and tape really didn't help all that much because it wasn't thick enough. I guess I could have added a ton of tape, or even taped some sort of pad to my arm (maybe a football tail paid, but that would be pretty bulky). Anyway, what I ended up doing was buying the padded wristbands...they were made by Hansen. Below is a link. Please note that if you order one pair, only one of the wristbands includes the pads. So if you need pads for both wrists, I guess you'll have to buy two pair.

http://incrediblebag.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=...C&Product_Code=HWPro
My son typically wears 4" sweatbands on both arms while catching and on occasion has taped his left wrist but not always.
As far as additional protection, he was hir by a pitch last fall just above his wrist and he came up with a pretty neat protection device. He cut the ribbed section out of a Powerade bottle (don't know size of bottle but it was not one of the larger bottles; fairly small bottle if I remember right) to about 3" long and 2-3" wide and lined it with padded moleskin. He then just slipped it under his sweatband while catching and took it out when at bat. Really couldn't tell it was under the sweatbands. The ribbed section from the bottle was strong enough to absorb alot of impact and the moleskin made it comfrotable to wear. It worked really well to protect the bones in the forearm above the wrist. Later in the season he found some foam padding used for laminate flooring that he used until all the pain went away.
As I keep reading everyone's post, something I've noticed, Almost all reponders have had ways to protect the wrist and forearm with anything from tape, wrist bands, padded wrist bands, Powerade bottles, (love that one!) or anything else thay can find. But not one has ever mentioned that any games were missed because of an injury.
I really think that Catchers are wired differently than most players. They get bumped, bruised, slammed into, run over, you name it, and just get up, dust the dirt off and keep plugging along. I know my son comes home and will lift up his shirt and show me the mark from where he has got hit, somes times leaving the outline of the of the ball and you can see the stitches from the ball ( he's most proud of those). They grab an ice pack than gear up the next day ready to go.
He has played third base on and off for years, but his coaches won't let him anymore because he drops a knee as the throw and runner slide in to third like he's blocking the plate which has caused him to receive 13 stitches in his thigh and forearm from being cleated. And yes, I know, he's not allowed to do that a third.
So to all the catchers out there, in case you never hear it, great job!! Pitchers and fielders get most of the credit. You are the journeymen and backbone of the team. So dust off, put your helmet back on and keep doing your thing.
quote:
Originally posted by Backstop-17:
As I recall we measured the wrist and bought the one closest to his size.

On the site I provided they have listed wrist circumference sizes:

Small up to 6''
Medium up to 7''
Medium/Large up to 7.5''
Large up to 8''

I would measure and see if the small one would work, it has been 9 years since I had a 9 year old wrist in the house.


Thanks, my speed reading missed that.

I stopped by Sports Authority and they are out. They look exactly like Emanski's link.
Last edited by Coach Atl
quote:
Originally posted by Tooldforthis:
As I keep reading everyone's post, something I've noticed, Almost all reponders have had ways to protect the wrist and forearm with anything from tape, wrist bands, padded wrist bands, Powerade bottles, (love that one!) or anything else thay can find. But not one has ever mentioned that any games were missed because of an injury.
I really think that Catchers are wired differently than most players. They get bumped, bruised, slammed into, run over, you name it, and just get up, dust the dirt off and keep plugging along. I know my son comes home and will lift up his shirt and show me the mark from where he has got hit, somes times leaving the outline of the of the ball and you can see the stitches from the ball ( he's most proud of those). They grab an ice pack than gear up the next day ready to go.
He has played third base on and off for years, but his coaches won't let him anymore because he drops a knee as the throw and runner slide in to third like he's blocking the plate which has caused him to receive 13 stitches in his thigh and forearm from being cleated. And yes, I know, he's not allowed to do that a third.
So to all the catchers out there, in case you never hear it, great job!! Pitchers and fielders get most of the credit. You are the journeymen and backbone of the team. So dust off, put your helmet back on and keep doing your thing.


Ouch, cleats are wicked, I used to get it in the top of the foot, immediate feedback if your foots in the wrong spot.

Funny you should notice the injury issue. I saw my son at 8 catch a pitch off the inside forearm. I called time and went to check on him. He says "Dad thats the third one today I'm used to it". Yes they are wired differently.
I'm with Emanski on the Hansen wrist guards. They are boss!

I also taped my left wrist only when I caught. I wore my glove very loose on my hand to help me snap the balls on the corners. It was also easier on my hand when I caught the fire ballers. The extra wrist support helped me with the whipping action I would use on pitches I thought were borderline in a game.

Definition of TV Tape can best be exemplified by looking at Sammy Sosa. I'm surprised there was enough tape left for the rest of us in the world after he was done!

Last edited by TheRick
Here's a pretty funny story about Sammy's tape (or at least it's funny to me). When Sammy (and McGwire) was hitting homers left and right, I was a sophomore in high school. I lived out in the country, so maybe I lived an insulated life, but I had only ever seen white athletic tape. However, I had seen prewrap of all different colors. So I was convinced that this idiot Sosa was using blue prewrap and then not taping over it in order to look cool. Never once did it cross my mind that maybe there were different colors of tape in more forward thinking parts of the world. Anyway, nobody but me is interestd in that story, but I thought I'd share anyway.
Catch43,
he used a small Powerade bottle(like 6-8 oz) which has a ridges/ribs on the bottom section. He cut out on of the sections, rounded the corners and put padded moleskin on the inside for comfort. Measured maybe 3.75"x 2.5" after he was done. The ridges/ribs were strong enough for protecting where he got hit and didn't hurt his blocking. Couldn't really tell it was under the sweatbands; he would put it in his back pocket when he was on the bench. He has about 3 of them in his bag as a "just in case".

Personally, I was very suprised at the structural strength of this contraption; I had been telling him that it wouldn't take a hard hit but I was wrong.

Couple of the other players made some after they got dinged and said they didn't really know it was there after awhile.
quote:
Originally posted by Tooldforthis:
As I keep reading everyone's post, something I've noticed.... not one has ever mentioned that any games were missed because of an injury. I really think that Catchers are wired differently than most players...
Amen brother, I know mine is, and he keeps smiling the whole time. I think he's been run over too many times!!! LOL

GED10 prefers black "spat" as it has some padding in it, from the wrists to about 4 inchs up his forearm.

GED10DaD
quote:
Show is an individual cost, not a team cost. My bad for assuming everyone knew that.



When I was in college, the football coaches required every player to have both wrists taped everyday for practice and for games. Most of the players didn't want it so it was on so light that it did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but the coach required it so it was there for them. Guess who was paying for that tape? Wasn't the football team's budget...

When I interned in the Frontier League, the athletic trainer there told me that the previous year he had a guy who came in and taped both his wrists with stretchy tape everyday for BP. Think Sammy Sosa above.. Then he would take that tape off and shower before the game so he would have to come in and re-tape each of them for the game. The athletic trainer put a stop to that one real quick...

Figured I’d bring this one back to life since there are some new products out there. Anybody here have any wrist protection products they swear by? My son wears an Evoshield guard on his glove hand but wants to start wrapping his throwing wrist. He wore a guard on it in the spring to protect a bad bone bruise and didn’t have any issues. 

He also has an AllStar guard he doesn’t use. Says it is harder to put on and take off compared to the Evoshield

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