So, I’ve been having this conversation on Twitter with a baseball guy about pitch counts.

If you’ve never checked out Twitter, it’s a pretty cool “micro” blogging community. Basically it’s short updates about what people are doing all around the world. If you have a f*ree account, you can login and see the updates from all the people you are following. There are even some cool softball people on there. Like I said, there’s no cost to use this tool – check it out at www.Twitter.com – follow me at Twitter.com/staciemahoe

Anyway – back to the story about my conversation…

One day on twitter I mentioned that I think that baseball people seem to be overly obsessed with pitch count; that they seem almost “religious” about it. Of course, this baseball guy responds that it’s not religion, but science. He said that if I’d seen the injuries to young pitchers arms (bone spurs, rotator cuff issues, damage to growth plates etc) that I’d understand.

I completely understand wanting to prevent devastating injuries to young athletes. I’m all for that. I just don’t think pitch count is an effective way to do that. In my discussion with baseball guy I talked about how I feel too many coaches are using pitch count as a “rule” rather than as a guideline. I think that there is sooooo much obsession with “pitch count” in baseball that coaches put too much emphasis on it and not enough on proper training, proper mechanics, proper care, proper warm-up, and listening to your body.

I feel that pitch counts are excellent…as a GUIDELINE!

Baseball guy said that rules have to be used when people don’t know how to properly use a guideline. However, I feel that if coaches are overlooking those other critical issues and just using pitch count as a rule, they could HURT their pitchers with their pitch count “obsession.” Continue reading →