first, documentary filmmaker ken burns' new film, a four-hour portrait of jackie robinson, will air on pbs (channel 11 here) from 9 pm to 11 pm monday and tuesday nights (april 11 and 12th.) this friday will mark the 69th anniversary of jackie's appearance in the big leagues (4/15/47)) and the breaking of baseball's color barrier. early reviews of the film say it's typically ken burns good.
second, i mentioned in an earlier post here that a selection of jeff passan's new book, "the arm" appeared in sports illustrated this past week. passan also wrote column for sunday's ny times, based on his book. his book argues that parents and baseball coaches may be ruining young arms by forcing kids to pitch too much for too long. passan's concern is partly personal: this year he'll be the pitching coach of his son's 8-year-old team and his son is a pitcher. his column, which appeared under the heading, "baseball is injuring too many kids," starts with a visit he made to a surgeon who cares for young baseball players in japan. some of the relevant paragraphs are below. you can google the entire column by going to nytimes.com and call up the "opinion" pages.
-mike
"Twice a week, the doctor, Naotaka Mamizuka, invites youth baseball players from across Japan to have their arms examined at the hospital where he works, about two hours from Tokyo. A spinal surgeon by trade, Dr. Mamizuka developed an interest in helping the children who are chewed up and spit out by Japans unforgiving youth baseball machine, which encourages year-round training and, during its national high school baseball tournaments, lionizes 200-pitch games.
"The day I visited, Ryusei was one of 20 patients, some as young as 9. Dr. Mamizuka diagnosed injuries in 19 of them. Almost all suffered damage to the ulnar collateral ligament, a triangular band of tissue that connects the upper and lower arms. In some cases the ligament was torn, requiring the procedure known as Tommy John surgery, common among pitchers in Major League Baseball. But the ligament itself didnt tear in most of the younger children; instead, it pulled off a piece of still-unhardened bone, leaving a fracture in the elbow.
'"I say to parents: This is not good, " Dr. Mamizuka told me that day. "Bad training. Bad pitching. Bad coaching."
"The coaching part is particularly resonant for me. My 8-year-old son starts kid-pitch baseball this spring. Im his teams pitching coach. Its my responsibility to make sure that the love of baseball doesnt impede healthy physical development.
"Youth baseball in the United States does not typically involve the militaristic training regimes common among elite youth players in Japan. But the number of arm injuries among American kids is still alarming. A study published last year in The American Journal of Sports Medicine found that from 2007 to 2011, nearly 57 percent of Tommy John surgeries here were performed on 15- to 19-year-old. ....
"Major League Baseball started a program called Pitch Smart in November 2014. It offers guidelines on safe and effective practices for pitchers of different age groups. For pitchers 8 and younger, for example, Pitch Smart recommends pitching fewer than 60 innings per year, as well as taking at least four months off from pitching.
"This is a proactive step by a league that for too long ignored the problem. At the same time, Pitch Smart suggests that an 8-year-old may throw up to 50 pitches per game. Though that is 25 pitches fewer than the limit that Little League baseball provided when it implemented pitch counts in 2007, I have no intention of letting kids on my sons team get anywhere near that threshold. The boys who pitch will throw a maximum of one inning at a time, once a week, 30 pitches tops. The rationale behind my rules is simple: These boys have got years to build up arm strength. Until research shows more conclusively what is and what isnt a safe amount of pitching for still-growing arms, no harm comes from babying them."
-- Edited by mhart on Sunday 10th of April 2016 04:02:03 PM
