In North Jersey, young pitchers' coaches stay on the injury alert - NorthJersey.com
John Smoltz used his Baseball Hall of Fame induction on Sunday to warn against young players straining their bodies to the point of requiring surgery — a problem familiar to North Jersey youth players and coaches. Smoltz, 48, who spent most of his career pitching for the Atlanta Braves, said children can play baseball “without a competitive pitch” and that it “is not normal to have a surgery at 14 or 15 years old. “They’re competing and maxing out too hard, too early, and that’s why we’re having these problems,” he said. Coaches say monitoring young players’ throwing mechanics — to guard against poor form — and a state rule limiting how many pitches youth players can throw have helped prevent injuries. Smoltz had what is called Tommy John surgery — a procedure that replaces an injured ligament in the throwing arm with a tendon from another part of the body. Even youth players are opting for the procedure, in some cases, before they suffer injuries. A 2012 study in Sports Health shows that from 2005 to 2010, more than a quarter of all Tommy John surgeries performed at an orthopedic center in Alabama were on youth players, a sharp rise from 1994-98, when youth surgeries made up only 7 percent... Greg Butler, athletic director of Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest and a former head baseball coach, said the impression among high school players is that if you’re going to have the surgery, get it done early. Source: www.northjersey.com
