Nathan Lewis of the Rancho Buena Vista Little League of California was just one of many pitchers with injured arms in the 2005 Little League World Series.
CHAPTER 7
Now Pitching for Faust …
LIKE ALL BASEBALL FANS, I have wondered about why major league pitching isn’t as strong as it used to be. When I was a kid I rooted for the New York Mets, a team with pitchers like Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, and Nolan Ryan. I came to appreciate a 1–0 or 2–1 game more than a 14–10 game. A pitching duel creates the game’s greatest tension and suspense.
But reliable, durable pitchers are rare these days. Why? Theories abound. Hitters have bulked up. Ballparks have gotten smaller, with shorter outfield fences and less foul territory. The strike zone has shrunk. Pitchers aren’t allowed to throw inside anymore. Hitters wear too much body armor. Hitters stall, ruining the pitcher’s rhythm. Specialization prevents young pitchers from developing fully. In amateur ball, hits go so far with aluminum bats that pitchers throw for strikeouts rather than grounders and popups. The designated hitter robs pitchers of first-hand knowledge of their foes. Scouts only care about giants and ignore smaller athletes. Pitchers use bad mechanics.
All very good thoughts. But I was struck by another theory, offered by Dr. James Andrews, the preeminent sports doctor in America.
“The best pitchers in the country never make it to the majors because they’re the ones in youth leagues and high school who are overused,” Andrews says. “We’re seeing more injuries now because these kids are having more pressure to throw at higher velocities. They’re throwing more sliders, more stress pitches. But the crux of the problem is we don’t have enough quality pitchers to go around because the good, quality pitchers are being hurt in the youth leagues.”
We ruin our pitchers when they’re young. The pitchers who would be major league stars never make it because they blow their arms out in Little League, PONY League, AAU, USSSA, Cooperstown Dreams Parks, and hundreds of summer tournaments. If Andrews is right—and he’s someone who should know—then maybe the Little League World Series is the best place to look for the future of pitching.
When I was in Williamsport, I talked with dozens of people—coaches and trainers, parents and players—about how they approach pitching.
How many pitches do coaches allow their pitchers to throw? Do coaches let their guys throw curveballs? What kind of curves do the kids throw? Is it safe to throw any curveball? How much rest do pitchers get? Do teams depend too much on the bigger, beefier pitchers? What do coaches know, and what do they teach, about pitching mechanics? Can coaches tell if a pitcher’s mechanics are off? When? What happens when pitchers get in trouble on the mound? What’s the parents’ role in deciding how to use young arms?
When I got home, I had an email from Rick Hale, the manager of the all-star team from Owensboro, Kentucky.
Hale was wracked with guilt about the way he treated pitchers in the long summer of Little League. The pressure to qualify for the Little League World Series—and the pressure to win in Williamsport—was so strong that no team could avoid overusing his top one or two pitchers.
“They are being abused and everyone who has ever coached an all-star team is guilty,” he said.
Rick Hale is an amiable and animated electrician who has lived his whole life in Owensboro, Kentucky. He was one of the most thoughtful characters I met in Williamsport. We talked for two hours one day— mostly about his players, but also about the larger trends shaping baseball and the best strategies for teaching young players.
Hale seemed conflicted by the whole scene in Williamsport. He loved being there. He was proud that the Owensboro Southern Little League was making its second straight appearance in Williamsport under his command. He loved his players, and he felt good about the support parents gave him. But at the same time, he was already feeling pressure to win. His team lost all three games in the 2004 Little League World Series and folks back home were calling him on his cell phone, prodding him to make sure the team won a game or two.
A longtime employee of Commonwealth Aluminum, Hale has coached Little League for twenty years. Gray and plump, his face stretches as he talks, a thin layer of gray whiskers widening and narrowing as the topics and expressions change. Did I say he loves talking about baseball? Little League is such an important experience for Hale that he named his baby daughter after Meghan Sims, a girl who pitched for his team in 2004.
Most Little League organizations select the manager of the championship team to coach the all-stars. But Hale’s team, the Braves, had a record of 0–20 in 2005. The Braves not only lost every game, but often lost ugly. In one game, the Braves lost 36–2 in a game ended after four innings by Little League’s ten-run mercy rule. The high point of the season was a 2–0 loss to the league’s best team. “I was very, very proud,” Hale said. “They thought they won. They knew they battled the best pitcher and the best team.”
A lousy team was part of Hale’s plan. Every year, the Owensboro Southern Little League drafts players ages ten, eleven, and twelve. Players stay with the team for as long as three years. Hale picked all tenyear-olds so he could build a superpower in two years. Other managers just laughed. “After the draft, our chances of winning were nothing,” he says. “They were giggling, ‘Good luck, Rick.’”
Hale got the manager’s job for Owensboro because no one else would take the team. But Hale guided the team to the state championship and then the Great Lakes regional championship in Indianapolis. And the all-stars from Owensboro made their second straight appearance in the Little League World Series.
The problem was, Hale cut a Faustian bargain to do it.
Three of Owensboro’s pitchers experienced serious arm problems by the end of the summer. Matthew Johnson hurt his arm so badly toward the end of the regular Little League season that he had a hard time throwing the ball at all. (His teammates made a joke of the underhanded throwing, calling him Finch, after the women’s softball star Jenny Finch.) Dalton West, the team’s top pitcher, broke down in the team’s first game of the series after two and a third innings of work. Nolan Miller also complained about a sore arm, so much that Hale decided to see if Johnson had healed enough to start the team’s do-ordie second game against Louisiana.
In his email confessional, Hale told me he contributed to his pitchers’ injuries by working them too hard. He emphasized he wasn’t alone, that everyone in the Little League World Series “abused” their young pitchers.
“Every Little League coach in the world is using his Number One [pitcher] as often as the rules allow or he risks not advancing in the tournament,” Hale said.
Owensboro’s ace, Dalton West, pitched three games in the Kentucky state tournament, one with two days of rest and the other with three days of rest. In the Great Lakes regional tournament—which qualifies teams for the World Series—West pitched three times again. After throwing ninety-four pitches in the first game, he threw eighty-nine pitches on two days of rest in game three. Then on two more days of rest, he threw ninety pitches in the semifinal game.
“When we opened up in Williamsport he was but a shell of himself,” Hale says. “I knew before the first pitch of that game he would never last the entire game. After two innings, he told me he was starting to tighten. I asked him if he could get me just one more inning and gallantly he told me he would try.”
It was a disaster. California won, 7–2. West threw seventy-nine pitches in just two and a third innings. He faced seventeen hitters and gave up seven runs on six hits and three walks. All seven runs came in a third inning without end, in which California hit two home runs, two singles, and got two walks.
“I truly regret sending him out in the third inning, not because of California’s outburst, but because he was sore the rest of the tourney,” Hale said later. “I only hope it is not a serious injury, but it is the tendon in his elbow. I truly believe it’s because of all the games on short rest.”
In the next game, with Nola
n Miller reporting a sore arm and Luke Daugherty doubtful (more on that in a moment), Hale turned to Matthew Johnson to keep his team alive against Louisiana. Hale had been working with Johnson in the bullpen under Volunteer Stadium, away from the spying eyes of other teams.
“I like the privacy,” Hale told me during our first conversation. “I like to do things my way. I don’t want anyone looking over my shoulders. It’s what works for me. I’m loud and I like to encourage guys: ‘All riiiight!’ I think that’s what we’re looking for—for them to think I think they’re the best. I don’t want to get self-conscious when I’m working with them.”
Hale didn’t want anyone to know that he was working with Johnson. Johnson hadn’t pitched for two and a half months because of his frayed arm. Every so often, Hale asked him to throw on the side to see if the pain was gone and the pop was back. Johnson tried during the Great Lakes regional tournament, but his arm still hurt too much. But he felt good in Williamsport.
“It was really a gutsy move, because our tournament life was at stake,” Hale told me later. “We worked him a couple of times under Volunteer Stadium, let him throw the baseball and it was remarkable how far he had come. He was still favoring his injury—not hurting, but scared to turn the ball loose. He was throwing strikes on the inside and outside parts of plate. The sessions helped release his fears. He relaxed and just threw.”
When Hale picked Johnson to pitch against Louisiana instead of Luke Daugherty, parents of the players screamed in protest. How can you have Matthew pitch? He hasn’t pitched for months! Luke’s a stronger pitcher!
The question is, why was Daugherty left on the shelf? Hale says it’s because the pitcher didn’t have the burning desire the team needed for his must-win game. “I always try to push each kid to his limit,” he says, adding that the players’ different personalities require different approaches. “One kid, you can get all over. Other kids, when you do that, you crush them.” Daugherty, Hale said, just didn’t have the “look in his eye” he needed to pitch in such an important game.
The Daughertys have a different take. More important than any “look in his eye” was that Hale didn’t think Daugherty could win without a curveball—and Daugherty’s father wouldn’t let him throw a curveball.
“I told Rick at the very beginning that I wouldn’t let Luke throw curves, and he accepted it,” says Joe Daugherty. “I just want to protect his arm. Even if he gets by at twelve [without an injury] doesn’t mean he’ll be okay at seventeen. But that meant he wasn’t going to be pitching as much [in tournaments]. That bothered him. When he got left out, he would just look at me from across the room.”
Even though he wanted to pitch more in big games, Luke Daugherty appreciates his father’s caution. “I need to wait until I’m sixteen or so,” he says when I ask about throwing a curveball. “It will pay off later. He told me one time and I agreed.”
Johnson pitched two and one-third innings, giving up two unearned runs before being replaced by Nolan Miller. Johnson threw thirty-six pitches and reported no soreness after the game.
But a day after the whole Williamsport pageant was over, Hale had regrets. He noted that fully developed major-league pitchers work on four days of rest, while his top Little League pitchers got only two days to recover.
“How in the world can anyone expect not to do damage to these young arms on two days rest again and again? I am as guilty as anyone of abusing my Number One, hoping for the chance to play in the big show, on national television. Well, it got us there, albeit with sore arms…Someone needs to speak out for these young athletes. They are being abused and everyone who has ever coached an all-star team is guilty because the rules allow it.”
Joe Daugherty adds a bitter note to the indictment. “This is what breaks my heart about Williamsport,” he says. “These kids were exploited for a grown man’s personal gain. That’s the dark side.”
In the weeks before Little League tryouts in 2006, Rick Hale regularly appeared at the doorstep of the Daugherty house, in freezing temperatures, petitioning Luke to play Little League again. Finally, Joe Daugherty told Hale that his son would not be playing Little League again. Luke could have become one of the first players ever to appear in the Little League World Series three times. But the Daughertys decided it was time to move on. “It was like hearing my high school sweetheart was going to the prom with my best friend,” Hale told me. “I was sick.”
All over Williamsport, pitchers broke down. The tragedy of the Little League World Series is that the teams who make it there—with a few notable exceptions—are so physically exhausted that they can’t count on their best pitchers for strong performances in Williamsport.
At a time when teams should be peaking, they are often starting to fall apart. In the minds of the coaches and parents—players don’t think too much about such matters—getting to the Little League World Series is the most important thing. Advancing to Williamsport means an allexpenses-paid trip to a tournament broadcast on national television. It means daily contact with former big leaguers and TV announcers, collecting boxes and boxes of baseball equipment, parades back home after the series is over, recognition on the streets. For some kids, it means a two- or three-week vacation from school.
Not getting to Williamsport means nothing.
Even when the teams are physically and emotionally wasted, the pressure to win continues. And here’s a cruel irony. The weaker the team, the greater the pressure to push one or two stud pitchers to the limit. A team from a place like Davenport, Iowa—which has sent teams to Williamsport four times in the last six years, but lost their last seven games—hangs everything on a big performance by its biggest performers. If only our big guy can come through, we’ll have a chance.
Steve Keener, Little League’s CEO, acknowledges that coaches and parents want to win so much that they often risk the player’s health.
“Adults want to win and they lose focus, they lose perspective,” Keener told me. “They believe that winning is going to make everybody happy. Sometimes the coaches get a little too important. The key element in all this is that by nature we’re all competitive. When we play something we want to win. That’s why you compete.” The answer, Keener says, is for the coach to set ground rules before the season limiting how much the kids will play. “So now when the parents say, ‘Put Luke in!’ you tell them, ‘Shut up! Remember the meeting when I said I will not compromise safety?’”
But sometimes the coach is the problem, not the victim of overzealous parents. “The league is the most important entity in all this,” Keener says. “The league selects the manager and the coaches. Too often, it’s the poorly run league that lets a few coaches get out of hand and control everything.” Coaches from blue-collar backgrounds often “are undermatched by intellectual or communication skills,” Keener says. “You might have a very good technical manager who might be a welder…or guys who can do plumbing or woodwork and stuff.” Those coaches need to be taught how to balance the goal of winning with the need to keep the game relaxed and fun for players.
The furor over abusing pitchers started on the first day of play. Iowa’s Ryan Schumaker threw 132 pitches in a 7–3 loss to Florida. Schumaker was so exhausted and distracted that in the fifth inning he threw two wild pitches in a row and forgot to cover home on one of the errant throws. Florida ran on Schumaker, and he looked like he had been mugged in an alley.
Jeff Mallonee, the Iowa coach, took responsibility for Schumaker’s high pitch count but seemed more concerned about Schumaker’s giving up a three-run homer to Florida’s Dante Bichette Jr. “It was a bad coaching decision to keep throwing him,” he said afterward. “In fact, the batter before, I decided to take him out if we walked the guy before Dante. But we changed our minds and left him in.”
When I talked with other coaches after the World Series—not just Little League coaches, but travel-team coaches as well—they all remembered the Iowa team pushing its ace too far. “I was as angry as anybody when that kid thr
ew 130-some pitches,” Mike Bono, a travel-team coach in Florida, told me. “It was sick. You just got to get him off the mound. You cannot allow him to stand out there and throw that many pitches. It was awful.”
For the rest of the series, Little League’s reporters and other coaches pointed to Schumaker’s long appearance as a prime example of abuse. But he was not the only pitcher to throw too much. In fact, another pitcher—Martin Cornelius of Venezuela—threw 137 pitches in a game against Japan. In the thirty-one games of the tournament, nine pitchers threw more than 100 pitches in a game. In those thirty-one games, thirty-five pitchers threw more than seventy-five pitches.
And it showed. Most teams dragged after their first game or two. Only one team—the all-stars from Ewa Beach, Hawaii—looked stronger at the end of the series than they did at the beginning.
To understand the dangers of pitching on young arms, a good place to start is the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama.
Created twenty years ago by Dr. James Andrews, the ASMI studies the “biomechanics” of all kinds of sports motions—pitching, hitting, golfing, gymnastics. The ASMI’s primary goal is to reduce injuries. A secondary goal is to improve performance. In the last decade, a long parade of major league teams—the Mets, Red Sox, Indians, Orioles, Athletics—has sent top pitching prospects to Birmingham.
Andrews reports that he performed four times as many elbow surgeries on collegiate players in 2000–04 than he did in 1995–99. He performed six times as many surgeries for high school pitchers in 2000–04 than 1995–99.
The crux of the problem is that when pitchers pitch too much—or when they throw dangerous pitches—they put their arms under repeated stresses. Pitch after pitch, the ends of a player’s bones grind away at each other—or they pull away from each other. If the stresses happen long enough, a player’s shoulder and elbow could be deformed forever, requiring surgery. Repetitive stress injuries have become the cause of more hospital visits than auto accidents.
Little League, Big Dreams Page 15