When Coaches Cross The Line

By Josh:

Last night I had the opportunity to watch a very young and talented 15 year old toe the rubber and lead his team to victory. He was throwing in the mid 80’s and showing signs of a bright future. He threw 120 pitches in the game and got the win.

None of this sounds out of the ordinary except behind the dugout stood a half dozen people very familiar with the game of baseball who were furious that this kid was pitching. The reason, just two days earlier he had thrown 138 pitches. That is 260 counted pitches, not counting warm ups with only one day of rest.

Here is a kid at the age of 15 who had been clocked at 86 MPH in the tournament and clearly still has room to grow and increase his velocity. He has the velocity to make both colleges and scouts take interest, an off speed pitch that makes hitters look like fools, and the determination to win every at bat he pitches in.

None of this will matter though if he is overused and ends up hurting his arm. So that is why so many, including myself were getting more and more frustrated with each pitch this kid threw.

I know it isn’t a crime to pitch a kid like this. It isn’t even probably going to be talked about beyond today even if the pitcher ends up hurting his arm. He will just be another young arm that didn’t last. However, to me this is a perfect example of overuse and even abuse by a coach who put a young pitchers health, career and future at risk just so he could get a single win in the Round Robin part of a tournament.

The entire coach staff of the team was aware of the pitch total. They were told a couple of times by officials of the tournament. Did they get another pitcher up and ready? No. They kept running the same pitcher out inning after inning.

In all of this I blame two groups of people. First the coaches. How dare you risk a kid’s future like this. There should be immediate suspensions for the coaches. They should not be allowed to coach kids if they are so willing to risk injury like this just so they can feel good about themselves as coaches. (If you saw and heard the coach after the game you would understand.)

The second group of people I blame is the parents. This young pitcher has a REAL chance of playing at a higher level. His velocity now is worthy of college consideration and if he increases his speed a little more he will draw scouts to his games to determine just how high he should be drafted. Yet his parents never stepped in to protect their son. I don’t even know if his parents were at the game, but if they were I just simply have to shake my head and wonder what they were thinking.

Little League baseball has pitch counts, it is time to start putting in rules for Babe Ruth baseball as well.