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Arm Injuries Striking Younger Pitchers

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 6, 2008

TORONTO - For as long as kids have watched baseball, they have tried to emulate their idols on the field.

Copying a favorite hitter's batting stance is one thing. But young players have begun to mirror the players they love in other, more disturbing, ways - like following them to the operating table.

"We're seeing so many injuries, particularly in high school and younger baseball players where we're having to do Tommy John surgery on them in epidemic proportions compared to where we were with that some years ago," said renowned orthopedist James Andrews. "It's become a major, major problem. These kids are getting hurt and having major surgery before they really get to be baseball players."

Sports medicine experts such as Andrews made their names and reputations operating on the world's best athletes and helping them return to the field. They're still as busy as ever in that regard, but they have seen a dramatic up-tick in business among those too young to have signed their first professional contract.

Those are patients they would rather not have, and they try to spread the word at every opportunity that young players, especially pitchers, are being pushed too hard.

"I've had parents tell me when the kid finally is coming in for a surgical procedure, 'Well, if we'd known all this, we certainly would have done something different,'" Andrews said. "But they're all caught up in this social activity of making professional athletes out of their kids."

Young pitchers need to learn how to throw properly, said Timothy Kremchek, a Cincinnati-based orthopedist who serves as medical director for the Reds and is a consultant to the Washington Nationals.

"Kids, when they throw, typically don't use their core body; they use their upper arm," Kremchek said. "And if they're never taught to throw right and they get abused, these kids get hurt."

The abuse comes when pitchers throw too often at too high a level of intensity, doctors say. Throwing regularly is a positive because it helps build up strength in the elbow and shoulder, but there is such a thing as too much.

A recent study by Andrews' American Sports Medicine Institute found that pitchers of high-school age or younger who throw while fatigued have a 36 times greater risk of injury than those who are properly rested.

Andrews recommends players under the age of 18 take "at least two, preferably three to four" months off each year from "overhead-type throwing" to allow their bodies to recover.

The bottom line: Playing it safe at a younger age can make for a longer career.

"Baseball's a great sport, and baseball's always been known as a healthy sport - it's our American pastime," Andrews said. "And what's happened here recently, in some peoples' minds, it's trending towards being an unhealthy sport, and we've got to fix that. It's got to be a healthy sport where kids can participate and not wind up in somebody's operating room."

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