Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Keeping Little League Arms Healthy

Youth Baseball Arm Health Script

JS1: [over low ambi noise of game in progress (ambi 1)] It?s a beautiful, early June evening at the Winslow Sports Park in Bloomington, Indiana. On a well-groomed diamond, two Babe Ruth league teams?Home Run Batting Cage and VFW square off as parents and friends cheer them on.

[ambi crowd noise up?clapping, cheering, chatter (ambi2), then bring it down and run under continued narration]

On the mound, 15-year-old VFW pitcher, Tyler Hearn, winds up and delivers. [ambi3?ump calling ?strike!?] Hearn is a big, stocky kid with a compact, powerful delivery. He throws a fastball, knuckleball, and curve, and looks like he could throw all night. But no matter how well he?s pitching, according to a new league rule, Hearn?s coach, Scott Johnson, will have to take him out of the game after four or five innings.

Johnson1: 1:05 The league has a limited number of innings the pitcher can pitch in a week, we tend to do pitch counts and just see how they?re doing over all, and see how the game?s progressing. 1:16 (8)

JS2: [over low ambi game noise (ambi4)] The newly instituted inning limits and pitch counts are meant to address a worrying trend in youth baseball. Over the past decade, an increasing number of pitchers as young as 11 are ending up with sprained elbows, shoulders, and wrists. From 2003-2006, more than 150 little league pitchers nationwide required surgery to repair their arms. Between summer leagues, fall leagues, and all-star traveling teams, little leaguers can end up playing nine months at a stretch. According to Jim Eirmann, coach of the Home Run Batting cage team, too much baseball can lead to over-pitching, which is a major cause of arm injuries.

Eirmann1: 4:32 In tournaments I?ve seen teams with only two pitchers and they throw them back to back 4 to 5 games. We had a tournament this weekend when the kid pitched four out of the five games. 4:47 I?ve seen other kids, one we were playing against, he threw 120 pitches.

JS3: 120 pitches is a lot, even for most major league pitchers. Because throwing that hard, that often, puts a lot of stress on the arm . . .

Kibler1: 1:14 The distraction force when you throw the ball toward home plate . . . 1:23 its like somebody your size pulling your arm out of the socket.

JS4: That?s Dr. Ben Kibler, director of the Lexington Sports Medicine Center in Kentucky. He said that doctors disagree whether throwing curve balls and sliders necessarily puts more stress on the arm . . . but throwing these arm twisting, wrist-snapping pitches incorrectly can make things worse.

Kibler2: 2:46 If the mechanics of how you throw it are not exactly right then that puts extra load on it, and you?ll see a whole lot of these pitchers who try to throw a curve ball with a different arm movement than what you do with a fastball, and that should not be the case, it should be the same arm movement, only the hand movement should be different. But not a lot of young kids learn the proper mechanics of throwing a curve ball. 3:08

JS4: As for when young pitchers should begin attempting to throw breaking balls, Kibler said, it depends on how well developed their bodies are. If a ten year old has the girth and muscle mass to withstand the torque put on the arm by throwing a curve, then fine. The temptation for less developed players to experiment with arm wrenching pitches is powerful, though. Mark Wheaden, coach of the 13 and under Ocean Midwest Sharks, in Bloomington, forbids his pitchers from throwing curves. But not all coaches are as protective of their players, he says, which can have serious consequences.

Wheadon1: 1:46 I personally think that there are some people out there encouraging them to throw curve balls. And you can win if you throw curve balls at the 9, 10, 11 year old age group, you?re gonna win because the batters, they just can?t hit it. But what you?re doing, and what I?ve seen when I was little, there was guys that just dominated when they was twelve but couldn?t even throw the ball from third to first when they got in high school.

JS5: At the 14-15 age level, like many of the coaches I spoke with , Jim Eirmann tries to find a middle ground between reining young pitchers in for their own good, and giving them leeway to throw curves, sliders, and other breaking pitches.

Eirmann2: 2:30 I?m not really for it, but at this age I know the kids are going to try it, or have already tried it. So the best thing I can do is just try to teach them the correct way . . . if they?re going to throw it, throw it the correct way that?s gonna minimize any damage to the arm.

JS5: For concerned parents of little league pitchers, experts stress that the best way to avoid arm injuries and prolong their child?s baseball career is to limit how much baseball they play in little league. Again, here?s Dr. Kibler . . .

Kibler3: 6:55 Do parents want their kid to be the best 12 year old pitcher, or do they want their kid to be successful in high school and college and the pros, say 18 to 20 to 22? If you want that then you?re going to not overload the kid early in life. The risk of injury, the risk of setback, the risk of burnout is quite high.

JS6: As for the young pitchers themselves . . . if Home Run Batting Cage?s Aaron Rabi is any indication, many are well aware of the potential dangers, and can sound like major league veterans when talking about taking care of their arms.

Rabi1: :56 before every game I sit at home, wrap it in towel to keep warm, then put ice on it to loosen up muscles and tendons, stretch a lot too.

JS7: And throwing a curve . . .?

Rabi2: It depends on how you throw it. If you just threw it and just snapped it, would do damage to your wrist. But I come out of my windup, I windup already coming out of that, so I don?t have to snap my wrist. And it still has that same kind of break.

JS8: For ___________, I?m Jeremy Shere.

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