ladies and gents (moms and dads and cdmsbl pitchers): i picked up a copy of sports illustrated last week. the magazine has tiger woods on the cover with the story title "what happened?" in big white letters.
that drew me first, but i found another article in magazine called "under the gun" an excerpt from jeff passan's new book, "the arm" to be the more interesting of the two. passan explores the growing and very lucrative world of youth baseball tournaments and argues that, in an attempt to notch high 90's speeds on the radar gun, teenage pitchers are more likely to see surgeons than multi-million dollar contracts.
passan profiles several teens who can hit 90s on their fastballs at events sponsored by one of the larger youth tournament organizations called "perfect game." at one point, he writes: "The significant rise in Tommy John cases dovetails with the expansion of Perfect Game in 1998.... Within six years Perfect Game was holding 25 national showcases annually and the number of youth and high-school-aged patients among Dr. James Andrews' ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction cases jumped for 4 percent in 1997 to 26 percent in 2003. He now estimates that one third of his patients are under 18. "
after talking about several young pitchers whose arms have gone, passan describes perhaps the most talented teen, riley pint, from kansas city, a 17 year old who stands 6-4, weighs 190, and has more than once thrown a 102-mile an hour fastball. but passan's dad, neil, pitched at iowa state and he wouldn't allow his son to pick up a baseball from september till march, when riley played basketball instead. the result is that pint's arm is still sound, he has a scholarship offer from LSU and super agent scott boras wants to represent him.
in short, the article makes a strong case for kids, and adults, to play more than one sport, and to give pitching bones a rest between seasons.
as for tiger: it's always fascinating to me to try understand great falls, whether from fame, grace or talent, and while writer alan shipnuck spends about eight pages pursuing the question, he never really nails the answer of how it was tiger went from a no. 1 ranking in the golf world about 16 months ago to, now, 320.shipnuck concludes [spoiler alert] that several forces hit woods about the same time, including a divorce, ugly publicity about his affairs, his father's death, injuries, several spine and knee surgeries, adding too much muscle for his frame, and, for me the most fascinating, a diminished desire to play, and all of them sent him tumbling.
-mike
-- Edited by mhart on Saturday 9th of April 2016 03:25:16 PM
