Kids Throwing Curve Balls

Tom House Ph.D (ex Texas Rangers pitching coach) has written several books and works with a motion analysis firm in Orange County CA. According to their analysis throwing the curve ball puts no more stress on the arm than a fastball. However he does point out that the curve puts more stress on the elbow and the fastball puts more stress on the shoulder. More details can be found in Tom House's recent(1995? copyright) book (the title escapes me currently) This is problably the only scientific study I'm aware of.

A couple of years ago I would have told you that there is no way you should teach a youngser under twelve to throw a curveball until My son became involved in a competitive travel team at age nine. Almost every kid was trying to throw a curve and most of them was doing it incorrectly. My opinion changed to ... "The kids are going to try to throw the pitch either in practice or while playing or somewhere unsupervised and you had better teach them the correct mechanics."

Almost every pitcher in my son's league (10 year olds now) now throws a curveball. A few rely on the pitch and throw it more than 50% of the time. I believe that a coach who allows this percentage is creating a disservice to pitchers at this age. They need to work on developing location and speed control. However, I do think that telling a kid he CAN"T do something sometimes backfires on you. I personally have told my son's coach (he calls pitches) that he can throw no more than 10% curves in a single game (we limit an outing to 50 - 60 pitches). I am not a doctor but I research everything I can on pitching (own more than 25 books, talked with numerous coaches, been around the game for years). It is my feeling based on all the research that throwing a low percentage of curveballs "correctly" will make my son a better pitcher without risk to his arm.

I still stress that you should throw the fastball 65% to 75% of the time and use a change up for an off-speed pitch, and that LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, is the CRUX of p itching.... but there is a few times where Uncle Charlie does come in handy.