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Youth Baseball: Batting Gloves or No Batting Gloves

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by exmediahack, May 6, 2012.

  1. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty New Member

    the first year i worked in the midwest, i took my oldest, who was 7 at the time, down to the yard to meet her coach. he says "wow, she's pretty good. is she interested on playing on a traveling team this summer?"

    i could muster nothing more than an "uh, no" because it caught me so, so off guard. fucking people are so over the top with kids it's sickening. funny thing is, tho, is the cat ended up being a pretty good coach.
     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Most baffling ones, at least. I can understand how in team sports you can be blinded subjectively and think the coach is underappreciating your snowflake's greatness. But in swim, you have the times and that's about all there is to it. I can't figure out where the controversy and outrage come in. But they do. Oh, they do.
     
  3. Jack_Kerouac

    Jack_Kerouac Member

    We start All-Stars at 6 here in Atlanta. Then again, baseball is pretty intense here thanks in large part to the East Cobb Baseball influence.
     
  4. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    Sad, kid who is probably one of the biggest 12 yr old studs in California has just shut down his throwing for the year because of pain in his elbow. He plays I think 3 traveling teams in addition to the LL team. Although I am not a pitch count fan (I believe in protection for kids but also that they should not be babied), that's way too much.
     
  5. Huggy

    Huggy Well-Known Member

    How in the world does a 12-year-old play for three travel teams? And a little league team? Huggy Jr. is 12 and that just sounds fucking insane to me, no matter how good the kid is.
     
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    We have a 9-year-old on our team who plays Pony League (us), Little League and travel ball.
     
  7. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Is the kid throwing curveballs? If so, someone needs to stop the kid now.
     
  8. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That's old thinking. Not that it's completely untrue I guess, but there has been a lot of mileage lately out of the fact that Lincecum starting throwing curveballs at age 6.

    Last year before the LLWS, researchers released a study showing that overuse -- specifically kids playing on multiple teams and year-round -- was by far the bigger risk factor. The researchers even said curveballs weren't really even considered that bad anymore, dwarfed by the constant strain on arms. It's especially bad when kids play in multiple leagues because then there's no tracking of their pitch counts.

    "There was no clear evidence that throwing breaking pitches at an early age was an injury risk factor."

    http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2011-08-03-little-league-pitching-study_n.htm
     
  9. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    They can't throw curveballs in the regular season in LL, but travel ball they can I am pretty sure. (My kid played travel last fall for the first time and that was allowed.)

    This opens up the regular season title for us but I don't wish this on him.
     
  10. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Old thinking? The fact that many, many kids of younger age throwing curveballs with arms that are far from physically mature enough to handle the strain says otherwise.

    Overuse is almost certainly a factor in some elbow rebuilds. Both are issues which need addressing. But I'd be willing to bet if a surgeon had someone break down the numbers, more than half the Tommy John procedures were because of kids tossing curveballs and breaking stuff rather than arm overuse.

    ----

    qtlaw: Kids that young tossing curveballs should be banned (and/or coaches punished ... yeah, it won't be, but ... ). Spotting pitches and mixing speeds should be all the challenge a young pitcher needs at that point.
     
  11. Huggy

    Huggy Well-Known Member

    I was coaching first during one of my kid's tournament games last summer and the first baseman told me he threw five pitches: four-seam and two-seam fastball, change, knuckleball and slider.

    I told him I refused to believe any 11-year-old kid has hands big enough to throw a knuckler and said if he really threw a slider at that age than he should enjoy having his arm reconstructed by the time he is out of high school.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Your opinion seems to be at odds with the researchers -- university professors in exercise science and various other specialties -- who issued a study saying, and I repeat, overuse was a far bigger problem than curveballs and they actually didn't find curveballs to be a cause for concern.

    I don't know if you have data that competes with theirs.
     
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