When the zany Deadspin sports blog gets ahold of a topic as delicate as the health of youngsters, you know something’s gone awry.
However, yesterday’s post about the overuse of Little Leaguers’ arms is rooted in strong journalism at The New York Times.
“Young, amateur pitchers are breaking down faster than a Dusty Baker rotation and no one knows what to do,” writes Deadspin’s Dashiell Bennett.
The post is about a Times Magazine article, Arms-Control Breakdown, which details how Dr. James Andrews, founder of the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., saw a startling increase in Tommy John surgery amongst youngsters.
In the late 1990s, Andrews performed nine such surgeries. In the middle part of this decade, he did 224.
I wrote a story about this trend two summers ago. Glenn Fleisig, one of Andrews’ researchers, told me in an interview that the trend continued to rise because middle- to high school-aged pitchers were throwing way too many innings than their bodies could handle.
The trend continues, according to the Times story.
“The surge in the number of Tommy John elbow operations was every bit as drastic: 9 from 1995 to 1998, 65 over the next four years, 224 from 2003 to 2008. Colleagues across the nation reported similar increases. ‘An epidemic’ is how Andrews described the phenomenon to me.”
Arms-Control Breakdown – The New York Times
What Is Wrong With Our Fragile Little League Baseball Players? – Deadspin
