Sullivan: A Hall of Famer issues a warning to baseball parents – News … – NorthJersey.com

The message was tucked deep inside a long and personal Hall of Fame acceptance speech, important words of warning amid heartfelt words of gratitude.

John Smoltz touched all the emotional bases Sunday afternoon in Cooperstown, N.Y., thanking everyone from family and friends to former teammates and coaches for helping him realize baseball’s career pinnacle. But it was when he turned his attention to a long-ago major league pitcher and a host of doctors and trainers that Smoltz’s moment of personal achievement morphed into one of public service.

With an impassioned plea to parents across America to protect the arms of their budding baseball stars, Smoltz gave an important big-league voice to an issue that threatens the future of our long-standing national pastime.

As the first pitcher in the Hall of Fame who had Tommy John surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm, Smoltz spoke from a perch of experience. Though filled with gratitude and appreciation for the career-saving procedure pioneered by noted orthopedist Dr. Frank Jobe and famously performed on onetime Yankee pitcher Tommy John, Smoltz is part of the growing chorus of baseball fans alarmed by the increase in Tommy John procedures, particularly among young athletes.

“It’s an epidemic, it’s something that’s affecting our game,” Smoltz said. “It’s something that I thought would cost me my career, but thanks to Dr. James Andrews and all those before him performing the surgery with such precision, it has caused it to be almost a false read, like a Band-Aid you put on your arm.

“I want to encourage families and parents that are out there to understand that is not normal to have a surgery at 14 or 15 years old, [that] you have time, that baseball is not a year-round sport, that you have an opportunity to be athletic and play other sports. Don’t let the institutions that are out there running before you, guaranteeing scholarship dollars and signing bonuses, [tell you] that this is the way.

“We have such great, dynamic arms in our game, and it’s a shame we are having one and two and three Tommy John recipients.”

Smoltz delighted in telling stories of his own Michigan youth, one in which his polka-playing parents dreamed of raising an accordion aficionado, not an athletic achiever. They merely stood in support as Smoltz spent hours in a cold back yard throwing a ball against a fence, playing out game-winning scenarios in his head while he threw. They were not wrapped up in today’s ever-growing overscheduled existence, where parents ferry kids between multiple teams in various leagues, never putting away their gloves for more than days at a time, always being monitored by coaches and talent evaluators.

The latter is what we see so often now, where lives like Smoltz’s are the exception rather than the rule in youth sports. That opportunities are plentiful is wonderful, but time is telling us we are paying too high a price.

Major League Baseball is aware of the growing problem and sponsors its “Pitch Smart” program, described on its website as “a series of practical, age-appropriate guidelines to help parents, players and coaches avoid overuse injuries and foster long, healthy careers for youth pitchers.”

The site includes this warning: “While accurate numbers are difficult to find for the Minor Leagues and amateur levels, anecdotal evidence strongly supports the notion that younger pitchers are undergoing the procedure at an unprecedented rate. Records from the American Sports Medicine Institute show that the number of Tommy John surgeries performed on youth pitchers at their facility have more than doubled since 2000.”

Yankees pitcher Chris Capuano (who also played for the Mets) underwent two Tommy John surgeries, performed six years apart. Again, while grateful for the procedure, he is alarmed by the number of young athletes who he hears are eager to have the surgery in the misguided belief it will make them stronger later in life.

“You come back in equal proportion to how hard you work and how disciplined you are in the rehab,” Capuano said after a recent game at Yankee Stadium. “I worked hard on my mechanics over the years, especially after the second Tommy John, to be more efficient, take pressure off of my elbow and shoulder. That’s really important to continue to evolve and search for most-efficient mechanics you can have.”

Instead, too many young pitchers are too eager just to throw hard, or, as Smoltz said, “competing and maxing out too hard, too early, and that’s why we’re having these problems.”

CC Sabathia, a starting pitcher who helped the Yankees win the 2009 World Series, recalled a youth filled with football, basketball and soccer in addition to baseball. Sabathia, 35, is closing in on 3,000 innings pitched across 15 MLB seasons without any arm surgery.

“My dad was on me and on my coaches. I didn’t pitch a lot until I was about 11 or 12,” he said, noting that his own children remain multiple sports participants, as well. “I think it makes you a better athlete. You get different aspects of different sports, and you can take that stuff and put it in whatever sport you want to play. I think it was great for me.”

For Smoltz, too, and that was what he was trying to convey on Sunday. Good for him.

“So I want to encourage you, if nothing else, know that your children’s passion and desire to play baseball is something they can do without a competitive pitch. Every throw a kid makes today is a competitive pitch. They don’t go outside, they don’t have fun, they don’t throw enough,” he said.

“Please, take care of those great future arms.”

Well said.

Email: sullivan@northjersey.com