The Arm by Jeff Passan Read Free Book Online Page B

San Diego Padres’ minor leaguers healthy.
    Was it his delivery? Too much throwing as a kid? Bad genes? The unnecessarily high pitch counts he ran up as a Cubs rookie? A combination of all four? Something else that no one can name? Prior is the baseball horror story that frightens Nicola and Martin Harrington and every parent whose kid braves the pitcher’s mound. Even if the unicorn that is a mechanically ideal delivery exists—one that spares the elbow in a motion that inherently stresses the elbow—so many other factors can derail it.
    Harrington’s teammates saved him from a stressful second outing by launching hits, including a mercy-rule-inducing home run to win the Super NIT. “The Harley thing could’ve easily blown up on us,” said Lorenzana. Instead, another coach picked up Harley and swung him around while the rest of the team danced in their blue-and-orange uniforms. At the ceremony for their championship rings, a tournament organizer prattled on, ending with a prophecy for a group of ten-year-olds he’d never met: “I know these guys are destined for greatness.”
    The Harringtons drove back to San Diego that night. Harley took a week off from baseball. Martin wondered whether he had done the right thing, rationalizing that never had Harley thrown even seventy pitches before, and that he never would consider leaving him in a full game and pitching him a day or two later. “It’s one of those situations where if you feel like your kid is being abused for one reason or another, we wouldn’t stand for that,” Martin said. “If our kid isn’t on the field playing, he’s depressed. To us, it makes sense. To Harley, it’s terrible. ‘How can you not put me on the field?’”
    Dr. James Andrews hears different versions of that same story almost every day, and he worries about the youth system’s halfhearted effort to clean itself up. Tommy John surgery is not a panacea. It requires time to rehab kids don’t have, training they may not be prepared to handle, and maturity they almost certainly don’t possess without parents and coaches emphasizing the importance of arm care.
    â€œWhat twelve-year-old is going to say? ‘Excuse me, coach, I’m feeling a little soreness in my elbow. I think it would be most prudent if I stopped now,’” said Dr. Glenn Fleisig, the research director at ASMI. “We have a kid who’s on a travel team and is a good pitcher. He enjoys being a good pitcher. His parents enjoy it. And they have nothing but the best intentions. Same with the coach. They all enjoy it. So here’s this kid. He’s pitching on a Saturday afternoon, and he’s spent. And his mom and dad are rooting for him. And so is this girl. And they’re winning four to two. So of course he’s going to keep pitching.”
    Doctors believe almost every UCL tear is an accumulation injury—a ligament worn down over time that finally relents. Kids play today more than ever, and while the correlation with the spike in UCL injuries is obvious, many in the sport see the relationship as causative, too. “There are so many misrepresentations of our game and how it should be taught and how kids should play it,” said Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLB Players Association. “I shudder at the thought of being told at thirteen years old to choose a sport because that would be my only chance to make it.”
    If there’s any good news, it’s that the elbow’s loss has been the shoulder’s gain. Shoulder injuries used to be the bane of baseball, ending careers far more often than elbows and causing nearly seven thousand disabled-list days as recently as 2008, according to research by Jeff Zimmerman of the Hardball Times . By 2014, the number dipped to fewer than three thousand, thanks in large part to innovative exercise programs that strengthened shoulder muscles.