Does anyone read the research?

Sometime I am so confused by the research.  One article says this is good and this is bad.  Curve balls are bad to throw and fastballs are good.  Another article says that curve ball are fine and its fastballs that are harder on the arm.  So what's the truth?  Has there been actual research and biomechanical analysis done?

Here is the Article link from American Journal of Sports Medicine on biomechanic (Abstract)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19448049

The keypoints are in the Results, Conclusion, and Clinical Relevance.


These two articles just have Abstracts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25251251
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19741352

Photo from zacharymagee.com

They are published articles with no bio-mechanical data just case studies and questionnaires to collect data.  So when reading and comparing data sometime its like apples the running shoes.  The research on one is correct and so is the other but its really hard to link them together.
If you just talk bio-mechanics with torque and arm velocity and stress then a fastball is more stressful than a curve ball.  That is what the data reports.  So do we stop throwing so many fastballs or do we find the real culprit......overuse.  Or is overuse the real culprit.  I know that the same muscles in the arm are made of the same fibers as those in the legs.  Runner train and train and keep increasing their speed and distance.  Do runners have overuse injuries?  Yes they do.  They have stress fractures, (the most common one), sprains and strains to joints but rarely the tendons and muscle tear like in the classic Ulnar Collateral Ligament tear in pitchers.  I personally think running 13.1 or even 26.2 miles is more traumatic then throwing 100 pitches.  There are some marathon runners that go out and run 6-8 miles the day after the have run a full marathon.
Training may be the key also.   Alan Jaeger says players do not throw enough.  I think he is right too.  I think he is right about older players that their bones have stopped growing.  After really studying the anatomy of the elbow and shoulder I am firm when I say this.  The combination of overuse, growing epiphysis, developing muscles and tendons and lastly inflammation are the real culprits.  Then the parents, coaches, and player ignore sound medical advice about dealing with an arm injury.  Feeding the young player anti-inflammatory pills is not the great fix all either.  It is probably a major contributor to the problem.  The elbow is a high tissue turn over area.  Meaning tissue in the synovial region is constantly being replaced and repaired.  Anti-inflams stop that turn over to reduce inflammation.  So the repair is slowed, but it needs to happen.  The young pitcher feels better because the inflammation has gone away and range of motion is restored so they think, "I can throw again!"  With out explaining this any farther are you seeing the problem?  It really is a combination of things that lead to the demise of that pitchers arm.    

Check or Zach Magee's article too.
http://zacharymagee.com/trouble-with-the-curve/

Reason #2 why I chose to become a chiropractor.
Recently on HBO there was a special report on the pay for minor league baseball players. here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=tfgsenSCyPE&app=desktop

There is a huge difference in pay from a major league player and a minor league player. I remember Carlos Castillo telling me that his check when he got called up was somewhere in the $8500 range. He had been there for two weeks. I didn't make that much for a whole season. Yes sir my first year with the White Sox I earned every penny of the $4200.00 before taxes. It was probably about $3500.00 after. Now that was only five months of work, since I signed as a free agent on May 6th. I will mention that the following year when I went to spring training I was paid $36 a week, which I had to give the club house manager $8.00. They fed all of us three meals a day which included breakfast, a sack lunch and dinner at the hotel. Who can live on $36 a week? I am thankful that The Organization paid for the hotel while I was there. When I did the break down of my last years salary with the Sox I was earning $1250.00 a month before taxes. I went to the office or the ballpark just about everyday of the season which starts the first week of April and can go to the middle of


September if team made it to playoffs. We play 140 games plus playoffs in 150 days. So lets do the math. The typical day started for me about 11:30am with flips or short toss with the hitting coach (some guy started earlier) and then early work with the positional fielding coaches, side pens with pitchers, full stretch run and throw, batting practice, break for the other team to take batting practice, suit up and then a 7:05 game start, finish by 10:00, then weights, shower, leave exhausted 11:00pm. Road trips meant morning lifting so the day started earlier and ended after the game. Twelve hours a day for 150 days equals exactly 1800 hours of work. That is only 20 hours less than an average person working 40 hours a week working 50 weeks a year. I use 50 weeks instead of 52 because everyone gets a vacation. We would get three days a season for All-Star Break. So I earned $7500.00 that season divided by 1800 hours comes out to be $4.17 an hour. Wow, what an idiot I seemed to be on paper now that I actually did the breakdown. I was worth so much more than that as a drywall apprentice. I earned $14.00 an hour doing that. As a professional hitting instructor I earned $60.00 an hour doing that. If I would have made it to the majors and sat the bench for a full season I would have earn $270,000 in 1999. I earned 2.7% of the major league minimum in 1999. I was blind a stupid, chasing my childhood dream. I was once asked if I would play professional baseball for free? I didn't think twice about my answer either. Hell No! Then I would say that my time is worth more than that. I laugh now because my time really wasn't. It was worth $4.17 per hour. So in the off season I would work my butt off saving money so I could weather spring training and the first two weeks of the season till I would receive that check. Also if you cried about it they would hand you a Taco Bell application and say, "Taco Bell is hiring why don't you go there?"
So this is the second reason I decided to become a doctor. I want to receive the compensation that I am worth. I have a tremendous amount of value and I feel I should be compensated handsomely for it. I'm glad some players finally sued for wage equality. I hope they win and all of us that played receive a check for back pay. It would help with some of my current expenses as I finish my last year. The lower 10% of chiropractors earn around $96,000 per year. That is still 12 times greater than the average minor league player makes. According to MLB, the average MLB player earns $3.39 million! http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10158314/mlb-average-salary-54-percent-339-million So as a chiropractor in the lower 10% of earners this would still be 3% of what the average MLB player earns. I figure I find comical.

What Does It Take to Be the Best?

To be the best your ways of BEING have to align with what you are trying to accomplish. For example, for me growing up I wanted to be a few things. A doctor, A professional motor cross rider, a police officer, a marine, and a professional baseball player. As I grew older I started talking more and more about being a professional baseball player then anything else. I one point I gave up riding motor cross because I feared I would injure myself and not be able to play baseball. So my ways of being started to change to conform to what I was really wanting. I like to party too, but when the partying and drinking began to affect my baseball performance then I had to cut that out too. Again partying and drinking were not in alignment of what I was wanting so I changed my way of being. I even used performance enhancers to elevate my game. Some people say, "You did whatever you had to to make it happen." It it the same with chiropractic school. The closer I get to the prize the more I see myself modify my behavior. I am on a three week break now and all I can think about is how I am going to pay my daughters medical expenses, where can I find extra work, and how many hours a day do I need to study to prepare for my next round of board exams. Everyday I do not put in the time of my craft I feel like I am going backwards. I am not wired for mediocrity. I find it hard to sleep at night just getting by in school with C's. Nobody is going to know what I received for a grade in school accept me. They will just see that I have a doctorate in chiropractic. People will just trust that I know what I am doing. Only thing is I know that I am just getting by and it bothers me. I question my knowledge of the situations. If I only know 70% of the material how can I be 100% sure I know what is going on? Maybe I am to hard on myself? Maybe I ask too much of myself? I remember training as a player and what that required. It required can't see hours. Can't see hours are hours that people can't see you working. Before people wake up and while they are sleeping at night, I was honing my craft. I remember some nights hitting with Eric Cole of the Houston Astros at 11:30 pm. I have worn out so many pairs of batting gloves I should have bought stock in Franklin, Easton, and Rawlings. That is what it takes. Champion Sports has a moto that I align with. "It takes a little more to be a Champion." They are right. There are guys with unbelievable natural talent. If they do not continue to grow, experience, change, adjust, and get better, then in a short period of time they become average players. The raw player or average player that continues to do repetitions and develop their skills will so pass the natural player that does nothing. I find myself lying in bed at night saying how am I going to get the reps I need to become a professional at chiropractic? The back and neck are not an Iron Mike with the ability to just spit out fastball after fastball. How am I going to get patient reps? How will I be able to diagnose injuries and subluxations correctly if I only have 250 treatment hours to graduate? It seems impossible to me sometimes. Then someone says, "That is why they call it a practice." I get to practice on unknowing participants. I am going to take some 60 year old woman's neck in my hands and give it just the right amount of thrust to move the bones in a way that gives her relief without giving her a stroke. Sound scary to you? It used to be scary for me. Today, two years later I know that my intention is to put life back into the body. I only with to restore things not destroy them. I love chiropractic because it has many similarities to baseball. Both are performance and result driven. Both require daily practice to improve. Continuing education is a requirement for both. My body has to be able to perform at a high level for both. Proper practice leads to better performance. I have heard people say perfect practice equals perfect performance and there is truth in this. What is really required is the discipline to be committed to what I say I want and the actions I do. I can say I want to be a chiropractor, but if I just go to school and do the minimums and then find other things to occupy my time and I really committed to what I said I wanted? Am I really doing a little more? Am I really doing what it takes to become a champion for chiropractic? If the results are not in alignment with the goal then there is only one piece of the equation to change and that would be the action. I am committed to changing the results and the action. What are you committed to doing?

New Members and New Records.

Jordan Blanchard currently pitching for Western Nevada Community College posted a 91 mph exit speed over the Christmas break. His younger brother Chandler, pictured here, bested him and set a new personal record of 93 mph. Way to go Chandler! Chandler has also recorded exit speeds with live pitching at 97 mph. Very soon I will be creating the 100 mph club and I am pretty sure that Chandler will be one of the first high school hitters in Nevada to join an elite group of hitters. Chandler is a freashmen at Coronado High School in Henderon, NV.

Umpiring Is a great way to learn the game.

First of all I would like to acknowledge my high school friend Mike VanVleet for introducing me to umpiring. That is Mike behind Mark McGuire hitting a home run. We both came through the minor leagues together. I as a player and Mike as an Umpire. He made it to the Majors, which is a feat in it's self. Umpires At that level are a small elite group. I was a college student home for the summer and I got to see Derek Jeter play in a summer league game for the Kalamazoo Maroons at Lakeview High School. I just worked the game before and was hanging around for a minute. There I saw Derek go deep in the hole for a ball and make a play that I had seen very few college players make. Then he came up and hit that right center field home run with a wood bat. Minutes later he told the Yankee's scout he would sign to play for them. I don't remember the scout, but he could hardly get the words out of his mouth right. He was so excited. Heck we were all excited, we were in the presence of greatness. Today I have about 60 games under my belt all from 10 years old up to high school.

Being an Umpire has really given me another perspective of the game. As a player I mostly watched the ball. As an Umpire I rarely watch it, unless I'm behind the plate. And some people would argue differently. There is a dance that happens when the ball is hit. The base umpire moves and watches the runner while I move to watch the ball. When a single is hit with a runner at first I move up to take the lead runner making sure he touches second on his way to third. The player in me wants to watch the ball and the ump in me fights to stay with the runner. Then, bad throw to third and the runner races home as my partner slides in to position to make the call at home. It is a perfectly choreographed dance. All the while I staying out of the way of players, runners and errant throws. Do I make mistakes? I make them daily. Do I learn something new? I learn something new daily. Sometimes something happens and I don't even know what to do. Thank God I have a partner. What I have learned from umpiring are the rules and interpretation of those rules. Everything from a balk and that the pitch is still live to what bases the runners get on a throw that goes out of play. What is interference, obstruction, and a catch. Yes, a catch is when i player catches the ball then removes it with their hand. If they dive then hold up their arm for two seconds and the ball come out, then it is not a catch. This is according to the rules and they are written. I have to tip my hat to the umpires I have worked with that have taught me this game. They keep the game moving so the kids can actually play a whole game before the time limit. When I was a kid you played seven inning with a ten run rule after 5 innings. Today because there are so many teams, so few fields, and most likely money issues a lot of games never make it to the last inning.

It is 15 runs after 3, 10 after 4 and 8 after 5 inning. All the while the umpires manage pitches in between innings, coaches making trips to the mound to talk to players, and my favorite talking to the batter after every pitch. Oh an lets not forget my favorite coach that keep asking how much time is left because he really wants the game called due to time so he can sneak off with a win. To those coaches I just say, "Respect the integrity of the game and play like you have no concept of time. It all about the kids and not how many wins you have as a little league coach."

If you ever wanted to get involved and be a servant of the game, then by all means take a class in being an umpire. So Thanks Mike VanVleet, Art Clendening, Mary MacDonald, and Gary White for showing me the ropes.

Intro to Effective Velocity