Dr. Brian McCall, an orthopedic surgeon with Northwest Orthopedics spoke on sports overuse injuries at the 4/26/07 Manager's meeting. He mentioned that there has been an explosion of youth sports injuries among younger athletes- a ten times (10x) increase in Tommy John surgeries and a five hundred times (500x) increase in shoulder injuries.

Dr. McCall suggested:

· Don't throw curveballs before the youth begins to shave

· Don't throw sliders

· Learn a change up

· Don't throw when tired or in pain. Tell your coach.

· Parents should be sensitive to the potential abuses of concurrent programs, both organized and unorganized.

PRBS has changed many pitching rules in 2007, designated to reduce arm abuse, pointing out that the Little League Organization now counts pitches and Park Ridge has reduced innings about 25 to 33%. For instance for eleven to twelve year old boys PRBS has reduces maximum innings per day from 4 to 3 and a maximum pitched per day for the Warriors at 85.

Both Dr. McCall and Jim Gillespie (the Chair of the PRBS Health Committee) suggested that parents, especially those involved in concurrent programs, familiarize themselves with these issues and review the websites that discuss sports overuse injuries like Littleleague.org, USABaseball.com, and MLB.com.. While the League, Managers, and Coaches are all monitoring the players general arm health, the player and his parents must be the ultimate judge whether the player is fit to pitch on a particular day.