"The study followed 481 pitchers for 10-years (1999-2008). All were healthy, active youth (aged 9 to 14 years) baseball pitchers at the beginning of the study"
"During the 10-year span, five percent of the pitchers suffered a serious injury resulting in surgery or retirement. Two of the boys in the study had surgery before their 13th birthday. Only 2.2 percent were still pitching by the 10th year of the study."
Sounds like this study could be used in favor of pitchers....5% of the pitchers suffered serious injury? That sounds low given pitchers are simply more subject to hurt their arms than 1st basemen or outfielders.
2 out of 481 had surgery. That's what a half of 1%. I had 2 out of 9 pitchers on my college team that had surgery. Again shocked it was that low.
2.2 percent were still pitching by the 10th year? Think about the fact that the study started with 9 or 10 years olds pitching. Most 9 or 10 year olds pitch at some point and never truly become "pitchers" at the highschool level. That said, if the study took 10 years it means the kid would have to be in college pitching which is less than 4% of players. So I would say 2.2% of 10 year olds pitching in 10 years is correct given the "weeding out" factor rather than injury.
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Posted - 02/04/2011 : 15:43:40
