John Smoltz became the first and very likely not last Baseball Hall of Fame inductee to be inducted after undergoing Tommy John Surgery. An injury that not too long ago was a career ender, Smoltz had the surgery at 34 years old and then went on to pitch and went on to win 56 game and save 154 games after the injury.
At the end of is just over 30 minute induction speech he tells a cautionary tale about the way we here in the United States develop our young athletes. Below is his entire speech. I highly recommend you take the whole thing in, but if you are in a pinch for time, fast forward to the 24:24 mark and just soak in his comments about what we as parents, coaches, and athletes are doing to our young arms.
John Smoltz is a survivor of the youth baseball meat grinder. Too many players today have their athletic careers ruined even before they even begin.
Smoltz mentions at the beginning of his speech that he began with a rubber ball and a brick wall, tossing it off the wall and to himself. Every time he picked up a ball wasn’t in competition.
Whether or not he knew it at the time, his tossing the ball against the wall was developing his arm for his professional life. It developed his arm, helping it cope with the stress of throwing 3,473 regular season big league innings in addition to another 209 postseason innings.
Today’s youth play year around. Every time they pick up a ball it is to play a game putting out maximum effort and maximum stress on their arm. There isn’t that good old athletic development anymore by not playing year around and taking time to do other things.
In the southern United States, young athletes never stop playing. They play competitive baseball year around, playing just as many games as the guys do in the big leagues. As a direct result, arms of young pitchers are failing at an alarming rate.
Smoltz’s spot on message is to parents and coaches of young athletes is to not fall victims of the industry of youth baseball. Don’t go out and ruin your young athlete because it is just the thing to do play year around, chasing signing bonuses and scholarships.
Spend time playing other sports and developing your youngster as a complete athlete. If you are talented enough to play the game at the next level, talent evaluators will find you. There isn’t any reason to go play a over 100 games per and blow up your body before it can even reach it’s athletic potential.
I won’t attempt to analyze this any further for you, just listen to Mr. Smoltz and soak it all in.
