By Alan Steele

Mark Hyman once published an article in BusinessWeek called "Tommy John Comes to High School" concerning the rise of the well-known elbow surgery among young pitchers and raising questions about those responsible for the health of these players. Less than two years later, the author's teenage son suffered a rupture of the ulnar collateral ligament and would require Tommy John surgery to be able to continue as a pitcher. Father and son were faced with a difficult medical decision, while Hyman posed the same question to himself that he had previously asked of others -- how did he fail to keep his own son safe?

Hyman's "Until It Hurts: America's Obsession With Youth Sports and How It Hurts Our Kids" (Beacon) is a concise, yet thorough examination of youth sports that benefits greatly from the author's personal point of view.

Scarcely a day passes without some example of egregious behavior by an overzealous parent or coach. While these outrageous tales have become the very public face of problems within youth sports, many less blatant issues exist. Overuse injuries caused by excessive training, once practically non-existent, have skyrocketed to as many as half of the annual 3.5 million treated sports injuries among those under the age of 15. One doctor tells of player after player explaining, during discussions of surgical options, "they're not sure if they want to continue in their sport but don't know how to tell their parents."

Bookkeeper Carl Stotz started the first Little League baseball team in the spring of 1939 in Williamsport, Pa. Today it has become a worldwide enterprise, with the Little League World Series broadcast annually on ESPN. The curveball has become its most prevalent pitch, despite the parade of physicians and professional pitchers who have stated for years that children of Little League age are not physically ready to throw it.
 
Despite rules limiting innings pitched, counts from recent Little League World Series games found some pitchers throwing as many as 116 pitches in a game, and one young hurler threw 266 in a nine-day period. The latter number would make any major league pitching coach cringe.

Is it any wonder that the man who started Little League baseball spent the last four decades of his life denouncing what the sport had become?

Of course, there are many good aspects to youth athletics, and Hyman closes the book with examples of sports programs that put the kids first and competition second. Every coach or parent, however well-informed, should find something of use in this volume. The information provided is eye-opening, and its perspective is honest and worthy of consideration by anyone concerned about the well-being of young athletes.

Issue 136: April 2009