Scenario: Your kid is a borderline minor league prospect who if he added a few miles per hour to his fastball perhaps the big leagues would come calling.Bad Parenting Solution: Go to an orthopedic surgeon and ask for him to do Tommy John surgery on his elbow in hopes that after rehab that fastball will go from 88 to 91.
As stupid as that sounds, apparently it is actually happening in the States now. Kids with injuries to their elbows are often overstating their symptoms in order to get a doctor to perform the surgery on them. Or even worse, parents with children who have 100% healthy arms are asking surgeons if they will perform the surgery so that their child can put that extra zip on his fastball.
Force and motion are produced by the contraction of muscles. Ligaments do not make the body move. They are ropelike devices that connect bones and stabilize joints, but they do not have any springlike function. Tommy John surgery relieves pain but does not provide an increased ability over a healthy natural ligament to transfer energy from the body to the ball, doctors said.
“There’s no way we can make it better than the good Lord made it,” Dr. Andrews said. [NY Times]
Perhaps it's just me but if I was given the option in high school to do a couple months rehab to get my arm back to healthy or fake some symptoms so I could have Tommy John surgery and rehab for over a year, I think I would go with the short rehab. The rehab for Tommy John is a long tedious process, just ask Chris Carpenter if he's looking forward to having the surgery done so he can "gain" a mph on his fastball.
Or better yet here's a simple solution for making sure that your child does not end up with elbow problems at a young age. Inform them that it is overly important to let someone know when their arm feels sore and to stop them from pitching then. And don't let him throw a curveball until he hits his teens. Teach him a change up. There you go you ass clowns.
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