It is an interesting read from a pure baseball-geek point of view. For example, the question of pitch counts for young arms isn't a new one. Most organizations mandate a fairly strict monitoring of the number of pitches a young guy can throw in a game. This was, however, the first time I'd seen a policy about the number of pitches a pitcher can throw in an inning. It's not unfounded; there has been a decent bit of research suggesting that pitches thrown under greater stress -- in a tight situation in a game, for example -- take more out of an arm than those thrown in less stressful situations. An inning where the pitch count has gotten as high as 30 is almost by definition going to include some high-stress pitches. So all in all that part of the article seems pretty sound.
What got me stressing comes later in the piece. Bert Bradley, the Giants' minor-league pitching coordinator quoted much in the article, reveals in some of his comments a bit of what's going on among some young ballplayer wannabes and presumably their parents, something that makes me break format for this blog and look not at the fan relationship to sports through faith filters, but to ask questions about those who are more directly participants in the whole enterprise.
For those not following baseball much this year, what's wrong with you? Aside from that, one of the larger stories in the sport this year is the number of extremely good young pitchers (including the closest thing I have to a man-crush in professional sports) missing in action due to the necessity for Tommy John surgery, a procedure in which a tendon from another part of the body is moved to the arm in order to replace a torn or otherwise damaged ligament there. It's been enough of a concern to draw a statement from the American Sports Medicine Institute offering a potentially scandalous suggestion to pitchers: don't throw so hard, at least not all the time.
*Sob* *Sniff*
Bradley, in the Richmond article, wonders about two different problems; young players throwing curveballs too young (his response to parents asking about their kids learning such a pitch at age 11 -- "not from me he won't" -- is priceless, and his his advice for a young pitcher not to throw curves until they can shave is pretty cool too) and players playing too much baseball, and specifically pitching too much baseball.
I'm not sure which angle about this phenomenon bothers me most. Is it the determination that the only thing that matters about your 11-year-old son is that he be groomed for professional baseball? Or is it doing so in a way that makes the kid less likely to get there? Or is it the idea of "professionalizing" youth sports? Having kids pitch so much as ten-, eleven-, or twelve-year-olds that their arms don't ever get to rest? Somehow this seems to miss the points of kids playing games, you know, playing games.
How long is this arm going to last?
Here's where I have to ask help. I'm not a parent and won't be one. Somebody explain to me the appeal of this -- the somewhat "professionalized" baseball travel teams, playing through what used to be called an "offseason," kids throwing so much they end up needing Tommy John surgery before they get out of high school. What's the appeal?
I was no athlete at any point of my life (everyone who has seen me try is allowed to nod knowingly at this point), but I did put out an effort. I never much played football, but I did at least try to play basketball or softball in their appropriate seasons (soccer hadn't hit at that point, and hockey had no hold that far south), and moving from one to another was, well, part of the progress of time -- "basketball season" was followed by "baseball season" (or softball for me; I really wasn't good).
So I need the help of you parents. What is exactly the point of such endeavors? I'm not being facetious; I really want help understanding the motivation for the perpetual baseball thing.
Is it the kid's choice, or the parents'?
What kind of expenditure is involved, and what is the expected return? What is the child supposed to get out of it? What is the benefit to their development as a human being?
And why in the hell would you have your child throwing curveballs at age eleven? That's been a no-no since I was a kid.
What is the ethic behind this? What is the developmental thing that can only be gained this way? What is the gain versus loss versus playing a different sport, or actually getting homework done (or, heck, I don't know, going to church on Sunday? Had to get that one in there, seminary graduate that I now am) or reading a freaking book or who knows what?
So I need comments. What is the point of making your child's baseball something a lot more like a professional endeavor? Or is that what it is -- is this really what the child's idea of fun looks like now?
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