My uneducated opinion, what is happening is "select ball". Kids playing baseball year round from age 8 on, so there is a huge increase in arm problems in the HS & college ball. How often do you see or hear of another Phillip Henigan (sp), who pitched 28 of the 32 games his HS team won, then went on to be a reliever for Cleveland for something like nine years.
In the 70s and early 80s, the thinking seemed to be that coaches—from little league, through pony and colt, through high school—had an ethical obligation not to throw out the arms of the youth pitchers. Part of this was throwing nothing but fastballs until you hit pony-colt at least. Then add a second pitch—preferably a change up. Then in high school add a third pitch, maybe a curve or a slider. And call for mostly fastballs. Don’t wear out the arms of the youth throwing a whole lot of curves and sliders. Teach them the pitches, and get them some experience throwing them, but mostly rely on the fastball. Once they advance to high school varsity, then it was really pitch to win, but still keep them on very reasonable pitch counts and plenty of days between starts. And if they’re playing competitive summer ball at all, keep their pitch counts down, and give them plenty of days between starts. Coaches who burned out the arms of youth pitchers were considered to be real sh!theads and pariahs.
Chop, Don't you think that playing year-round baseball hurt the arms as well? For those that have forgotten or are too young to know, Swindell's dad was at every game and controlled how often he pitched and how many pitches he threw. Many of us believe that had Gus given him another day's rest in Omaha, we would have another National Championship.
No offense to any of the "traveling" team coaches, but they are out of their depth when it comes to pitching.
