Protecting Your Son’s Arm When He’s Playing for Multiple Teams
We see it all the time. Kids make a commitment to one team and then all of a sudden they aren’t around for practices, but these same kids never seem to miss a game. Then we find out they’ve been missing practice to guest play for other teams. Besides the obvious commitment issue discussion that will need to take place with that family, there is another concern. Arm care.
Parents, especially parents of younger players, don’t often understand or concern themselves with the potential risks of playing too much. I’ve heard these things from parents: “He doesn’t pitch a lot so it’s fine.” Or, “he only plays outfield when he plays for that other team.” All good intentions…but all those innings add up and sometimes, without proper care and attention, the player gets hurt.
I can speak to this personally because I was one of those parents. When my son was 12, he played for his travel team in addition to a rec team in town. This was actually required by the travel organization he was with. He was a pitcher and second baseman. I asked his rec coaches not to pitch him. But occasionally, they would want to bring him in to close a game, or to get out of a jam and I would see my son warming in the bull pen. “Beth - it will only be 20 pitches - we know he’s on a limit.” But here’s what happened. 60 pitches in the travel game Sunday. 25 in the rec game Tuesday. Maybe another 20 in a rec game Friday to close it out. Bull pen warm ups. No real rest days. No legitimate warm up or cool down routine. No bands. No running. And by June of that year, he couldn’t even throw from second to first without significant pain.
Thankfully, he only had a bone bruise in his elbow and nothing more (the bruising was caused by the bones rubbing against each other from overuse.) The doctor shut him down for 6 weeks. He almost missed the opportunity to play in Cooperstown that summer. If we hadn’t pulled a late week, he would have missed the whole thing.
And make no mistake -while pitchers and catchers are most at risk for overuse injuries, any position player could potentially be in this spot without proper care.
So how do we help protect these arms? We will go into detail on specific protection measures in an upcoming podcast episode, but for starters, communication is key. You must first let your coach know you’re guest playing somewhere. Because let’s face it - they will see it on Instagram anyway so you may as well be up front about it. In addition, you must tell the guest coach how many pitches or innings your child played for their travel team and how many days ago it was. You can, and should, talk about how they will use your son in this guest role. Is he there to DH? Is he there because of his speed in the outfield? Will they expect him to throw an inning or two if need be? You must be your child’s advocate and be part of the decision making process.
You also need to talk to your coaches about a proper arm care routine. And if your coach doesn’t know what to tell you (through no fault of their own - many coaches do not know proper arm care regimens), DM or email me and I will make sure you have the proper information. If your son is willing to play all the time, he needs to be mature enough to also understand the work that comes with that - taking care of himself so he’s actually available to play like that.
Lastly, make sure you’re paying attention. Keep your own pitch count. Read up on pre and post game arm care. And remember - this isn’t just for pitchers! Kids who love baseball will always say they want to play 7 days a week, which is great, as long as everyone is working together to protect the asset.