I wanted to share this in the hope that our experience might help others to avoid the mistakes we made.
My kid is 11, baseball has always been his main sport. For the past three years he’s been playing travel. He’s a decent all round player for a majors level team but he’s especially strong when it comes to pitching.
Last week after throwing just a couple of pitches, he broke down in pain after throwing a fastball, only his third pitch of the day/ weekend. Pain in his inner elbow. We took him out immediately, orthopedist confirmed he has medial apolophysitis. Could have been worse, there wasn’t any separation but a small fracture due to overuse. We elected to be as safe as possible with treatment, he’s in a cast for three weeks while it heals, then physical therapy and return to throwing program when he’s ready. Possible he may be able to hit again this summer but throwing / pitching is done. Poor kid is pretty bummed about the whole thing and I feel so bad this happened.
How did we get here? I thought we were doing everything right but we weren’t careful enough.
His coach is an awesome guy, I feel so lucky that he landed on this team. He will not let any of the kids on this team pitch excessively, he’s militant about this. It would be very rare for my kid to throw more than 50 pitches in a game, at 60+ he will pull kids out even if the kid is dialed in and we risk losing. Over a tournament weekend nobody is throwing more than 80. We routinely face teams so desperate to beat us that they’ll have their ‘ace’ pitcher throw more than this in one game and our coach will get angry at the other team for being irresponsible.
We do max 2 tournaments a month, it’s a year round team but there is a strict month-long break in August and December where kids are instructed to take a complete break from throwing. For fall especially, kids are encouraged to play another sport and fall season is more relaxed with practices to allow for this. In additional to regular practice they prioritize physical conditioning with gym sessions.
In short, this is the most mindful and conservative travel team I have ever seen when it comes to prioritizing kids health. And they are living proof that you don’t need to play a million games each season to be a top team - they win about half the tournaments they enter.
Despite this, my kid is in a cast and here’s where I wish we’d done things differently.
Firstly, the teams he played for in the past were not as careful. The doctor said his current team’s approach is all well and good but the cumulative impact of playing non stop for four years was likely a major factor and his prior team used to pitch him a lot.
Secondly, my kid just does not stop throwing balls all the time. At home, he throws balls against a rebounder net. He watches games on tv and he’s throwing foam baseballs against the wall. He just has so much energy and loves to throw and catch. Not pitching, just throwing and catching. He does this even after he’s played a couple of games and I never stopped him, I didn’t realize how important it was for him to give his arm real rest time especially after he pitched. Going forwards, we’ll make sure he’s letting himself recover and shut down all throwing after games especially.
Thirdly, we failed to appreciate the stress that his technique was putting on his elbow. I didn’t grow up playing baseball, I knew very little about this sport and his love and passion for baseball is all him. I’m about the least typical travel team dad you will ever see.
Most other kids on his team grew up with dads that played baseball at some point and were able to teach their kids at least basic technique. My kid throws very hard, low 60s fastballs, and he is a good pitcher. When we joined this team, the coach and assistant coach both said he’s pitching great but he’s going to have to change his technique at some point because he’s putting a lot of strain on his elbow and using his strength to overcome a non optimal technique. I mentioned this to the private coach he sees once every few weeks and he said it wasn’t a big problem to worry about at this age, I never really pushed back on this and wish now I’d been more proactive in correcting things.
At no point did my kid ever complain about pain in his arm or elbow until he broke down in pain after one pitch too many. We didn’t get any warning this was coming. Going forward we’ll be much more careful with rest days and technique. We’re so upset this happened to him, wish we had done certain things differently.