On advancing to Williamsport! I noticed your pitchers are throwing a lot of curve balls. Is that in their best interest long term? Or does it pretty much come down to win at all cost? I just can't fathom that the kids futures and doing things the right way would not be the top priority in that age group. Best of luck!

i thought this was going to be about the orioles

What city are they from?

Pearland

You cannot throw a curve ball at that age without doing permanent damage to yourself.

No need to specifically call them out for win at all cost tactics when little league pitchers have been throwing too many curve balls for as long as anyone can remember. Doesn't make it right, but it's not a new problem and it's not isolated with one team. Weird to bring it up now unless it's your first game to watch.

I threw a curveball at that age... but it was slow as ****

Yeah, I just tuned into that last inning, when their "closer" came in. Imagine that, a little league team has a closer. He was throwing nothing but curves. The coaches didn't seem to step to get him to go with the number one, to try to get it done that way.

The debate about the impact of the curve is interesting. It's not as cut and dry as everyone once thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/sports/baseball/debate-grows-over-how-to-protect-young-pitching-arms.html?pagewanted=all

[This message has been edited by DannyDuberstein (edited 8/8/2014 9:26a).]

nice team.. watched them in Sectionals. Its Pearland so its definitely win at all costs.

Curve ball at that young age is not advisable, but the "experts" are split on it. Even Dr. Andrews says its ok IF they throw it properly...which most of them do not do.

I'm rooting for them because they're from the area, but I'm not all together thrilled with how they do business in that league.

[This message has been edited by MAROON (edited 8/8/2014 2:36p).]

So how did they put the team together?

Proud of those young folks.

I didn't get a chance to watch the game. Was the kid throwing a true 12-6 curve or a football curve (more of a slurve). If you are not throwing a football curve (horseshoe grip, no pronation) you won't have much success as a select major pitcher beyond 11u. Having said that, our kids throw it maybe 25% of the time. Our thought is that it is a safe pitch due to the lack of pronation. We focus more on pitch count for arm health, which LL does have. The dirty secret though is that the kids you see on LL WS teams are on select teams as well so who knows what their total pitch counts are like.

For the most part the Pearland kids play together for select ball so they aren't doubling down on innings. I am proud of this team.

quote:

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Was the kid throwing a true 12-6 curve or a football curve (more of a slurve). If you are not throwing a football curve (horseshoe grip, no pronation) you won't have much success as a select major pitcher beyond 11u.

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Edited for njw's clarification on quote. Thanks bro.

[This message has been edited by Phil garner (edited 8/14/2014 1:33a).]

I should have said "a safe breaking ball" is needed starting around 11u, which is what I meant by my statement. Of course at 13+ kids are developing 12-6 curves.