curveballs

Knowledge of and compliance with USA Baseball pitch count recommendations by youth baseball coaches is poor, putting youth pitchers at increased risk for upper extremity pain and injuries, finds a disturbing new study.

Overuse is to blame for arm injuries among youth baseball players, but throwing curve balls at an early age still increases risk, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.

Whether young pitchers should delay throwing curve balls to protect against arm injuries has long been the subject of debate.  Despite the fact that baseball is the most widely studied youth sport in the United States, the jury is still out on the role of breaking pitches in overuse injuries.

Youth baseball pitchers throwing more than 100 innings in a calendar year are 3.5 times more likely to be so seriously injured as to require elbow or shoulder surgery or retirement due to injury, says a new study from the American Sports Medicine Institute. The study suggests that playing catcher may double or triple a pitcher's risk of injury, but the small number of injured players studied prevented a finding that the risk was significantly significant.