Power of a breaking ball

Let's start with something you put in your 1st sentence. "CORRECTLY". If a player wants to make a ball curve and it does, it was thrown correctly. No two people throw a curve, or any other pitch for that matter, exactly the same way. There are far too many variables to allow that to happen.

The concern isn't that it was thrown "correctly", the concern that if thrown in a way that puts undue stress on the arm. Every doctor, and advocates on both sides of the issue agree that there are ways to throw any pitch which have more of a chance to injure a player than others, and that's what the concern is.

Who is more likely to have the skills, physical maturity and proper teaching to throw any pitch in the manner least likely to injure themselves, a 10 YO or a 16 YO? Its that simple! Are there 10 YOs out there who get the proper training, have the physical maturity and the skills to do it? Of course! But what are the odds of that being true for every kid that pitches?

For every great coach out there, there are 1,000 who have good intentions but don't have the knowledge that any sane person would bet the health of their kid on, and that's why there is so much concern.

Of course every kid will try to throw a hook, even non pitchers will do it. But, messing around with it while playing catch is a far cry from practicing it and throwing it in a game!

The knee buckling doesn't happen because the ball is curving, it happens because the batter was fooled. His mind was prepared for one thing and something else came. I've seen batters buckle on a FB up and in when they were looking for one low and away. The fact is, they got fooled.

The worst pitch as far as arm heath goes is the screwball, not the slider. In order to make the ball go "backwards" a great deal, the arm is forced into twisting that puts far more stress on the shoulder and elbow than any other pitch.

You do the same thing with a generalization about the slider that you say people do with the curve. I can guarantee that the slider you describe is not the slider that most people throw. in fact, slider is a general term for any pitch that can be described as any of the "more standard" pitches.

A baseball can be gripped and thrown in a million different ways. Some of those ways have been grouped together and come to be known as a certain pitch. A FB can be thrown with lots of grips and be made to do a variety of things, but its still fairly recognizable as a FB because its generally thrown faster than the other pitches a pitcher might throw.

A knuckler doesn't necessarily get thrown using the knuckles, but is recognizable because of the lack of spin. A curve doesn't necessarily mean the ball curves horizontally which is what most people think, it really describes a pitch thrown with a much higher rate of spin than other pitches a pitcher might throw.

The term "slider" is usually used to describe a pitch that doesn't fall into one of the other categories. Some people call the cut FB a slider and some call a big sweeping breaking ball a slider. It can be and is thrown in such a variety of ways that its really virtually indistinguishable by anyone other than the pitcher who throws it.

The thing is, no matter what the pitch is, there are ways to throw it that put more or less stress on the pitcher, The big problem is, what might be stressful for one pitcher might be very easy on another. The trick is being able to identify that for any given pitcher. That's why its so important to have a coach or someone else who really knows pitching and is familiar with the pitcher.

You think that 5-8 curves in a game won't harm a young pitcher any more than "those 50 fastballs accompanied by 10 changeups or whatever", and you may be right! In fact, I agree with you 100% and probably so would everyone else if you just added the caveat, "if thrown in such a way that they limit that particular individual's chance for injury".

My guess is, everyone would go to your side of the fence if they were positive that every pitcher had someone teaching and watching him who was highly qualified, and the pitcher had access to the best medicine money could buy.

You see, all most of us are doing is "playing it safe"! Anyone with any knowledge if the game understands that there isn't any need to throw any pitch other than a nice straight ball right down the middle to be a pitcher. The chances are, even doing that against the very best hitters will eventually produce 3 out and let the other team have a chance.

But, everyone wants to win! That means now the pitcher's job isn't to throw strikes and get the batter to hit the ball, now its to make the batter miss. The ultimate pitcher strikes out everyone, but the problem is, that just isn't possible!

I noticed you said your boy has never had any elbow or tightness from throwing a curve. I hope that's doesn't mean he's had those things from not throwing curves. But just so I can say I warned you, let me tell you this. a little kid really can't tell when something's wrong or not, and even when they can, its highly unlikely that they'll say much about it unless it really hurts bad.

Kids are so active, they almost always have some kind of bump, bruise, ache or pain, so they don't necessarily associate it with something being wrong. I seen it happen where a kid's arm hurt him constantly, but since it always hurt, he just assumed everyone else's arm hurt too, so he never mentioned it.

It wasn't until he was 11 and needed to have his rotator operated on that anyone knew there was anything really wrong. Sure, that's a one in a million case, but it demonstrates that there's just no way to be sure about anything with a kid.

The two camps you talk about will never come together and people just hae to make their own decisions about which camp they want their kid to be part of. On one extreme, the coach or team will have a win at any cost philosophy, with no regard to anything other than the final score. On the other extreme, it will be powderpuff ball with foam rubber bats and balls. There will be no score kept and every player will wear Kevlar body armor.

Most people fall somewhere in between, and folks like me who put more value on my kids heath than the glory of winning the big game will migrate toward a team or coach who likes to win, but tends to be much more conservative when it comes to pitchers. Folks like you are a bit more aggressive when it comes to winning and losing and will tend to migrate to a team or coach who thinks like they do and is willing to take a few extra risks to do it.

The nice thing is, there is room for everyone in baseball. You get to have your opinions and do what you feel is right, and I get to have mine. My kid got through his "youth" baseball career(7-12) with no injuries and is halfway through his "young man's" career(13-18) with still no injuries, and he's had a great deal of "glory" to boot. I sincerely wish the same for your boy.