Wait, what?

That was an explanation I had been handed after a full winter of promises, dedication, development. A winter I had spent crushing JV pitching, with four home runs in three games.

Hitting has always been something I was good at. It was my first focus, my best quality growing up, and ultimately what helped me break through to professional baseball after a long road of injuries, surgeries, and simple bad luck. In baseball, time gaps in your resume are even worse for you than in the real world. Stop playing for any reason, in any season, and it is a black mark on your name.

I consider myself a flawed player. I admit that I shouldn’t have been drafted out of high school. I shouldn’t have stopped playing college ball because of the competition and talent on a stacked Division I junior college team. I should have transferred to the other school, which was willing to take me as a freshman red shirt, but I was homesick; a long way from Illinois as a student in Arizona.

A Restart From the Bottom

I credit my dad for helping me realize, as a 20-year-old, part-time student, that time and baseball was slipping away. My first attempts to come back were very, very hard. I was raw. While I kept a regular workout regimen during my two years off, the result was that I had outgrown my body. I was still using mechanics at the plate I learned in high school—at about thirty pounds lighter. Yet, I got the golden opportunity to play collegiate ball again, at a small school I had once balked at, as an overconfident and under-informed high school senior.

So began my two-year journey to find the field at the lowest level of college ball. I was naïve. But this time around, I was also relentless. I worked very hard to play. I got much better. Because of my experience in giving up before, my mindset this time around was to stick with it, no matter what.

But that mindset became a liability, when it blinded me to the reality that I was being taken advantage of. I was clearly ready to take the field and be a presence on our team. I finally realized it after a summer playing in a league full of higher-level collegiate players, and returning in the fall to find I had advanced past the pitching I was seeing.

My black mark was still haunting me.

“You need to field better to DH here,” my collegiate coach had told me. It was the final excuse he had to keep me off the field, after promising in the fall a full season of at-bats, and after me proving I was ready. It was his ego, his vendetta against me, and possibly the fact that he didn’t want me to surpass his own playing numbers at college baseball’s lowest level.

I had come to the realization that one man’s ego can become bigger than the success of a program. Sticking with it, no matter what, was hurting me this time around. And the clock of my career continued to run. Fool me once, shame on you. I transferred.

Proving Them All Wrong

Bad luck would wipe out my final season of eligibility in the NCAA. I underwent two surgeries from overuse injuries, a fracture of the hook of the hamate; an injury players get from hitting too much. I was 23, and still hungry. Tried out for team after team in independent minor league professional baseball. Time after time, rejected. I saw the same players over and over, in every state and all of the leagues. My resume just wasn’t something that a manager could stick his neck out for.

But my talent continued to grow. Home runs, power, and now speed. I was always working, and always getting better. When my talent became undeniable, I got a shot playing in Canada. I turned that into two shots at the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball; a place where affiliated talent goes to a farm system. and a place where players like me never get a chance. It pissed a lot of coaches off that I broke through, collegiate and professional alike. It was a hit to their ego to see that they were wrong.

I put up a very respectable spring in 2015 in Grand Prairie, Texas. A former MLB outfielder nicknamed me “The Machine,” because of my hitting. Our shortstop (a former AA player) noticed how quickly I got to second after a line drive to left field, and greeted me “power hitter, and you can run too.” I was 27 years old and I had peaked.

From Player to Coach

That summer, I fell ill. I contracted a rare disease called valley fever, and had to have lung surgery. Just like that, my playing career was toast.

But the following summer, I started messing around again. I had lost a lot of weight, and began to learn more about utilizing my mechanics. I had found more power and more bat speed than ever before. I was a better hitter.

How was this happening? How was I better? I hit everything, even off some professional, experienced pitchers, players like me. It didn’t even feel like I was trying. Last fall, I realized I had to get the word out on these hitting mechanics. If I could do it, I could teach it. I knew how to train for it as a strength coach. I would write a book. It would be affordable. It would help younger players.

I gained experience as a coach while I was still a professional player, having spent two years as an IHSA varsity assistant and full time private hitting instructor in the offseason. I had flaws as a player, but my hitting and speed were better than a lot of people with pro contracts. By experience and experimentation, I had learned to teach these things. I knew the world of coaching was competitive, but I had faith that there were institutions out there more concerned with their program’s success than their coach’s ego.

Inside Ball

When a coach lands a job in high school, college, or pro baseball, they are given the opportunity to either cultivate talent or appease their ego. They are given the choice of humility or braggadocio. They can keep an open mind to better serve their players as a teacher, or be stuck in their ways forever. My open-mindedness allowed me to completely overhaul my hitting mechanics, and to stand up for the right things for the players I coach.

The dark and deceiving favoritism, homerism, and falsities within baseball affect both players and coaches. I once assisted a former professional player and varsity head coach who was relieved of his duties after taking my alma mater to sectionals. The black marks on my resume prevented me from some opportunities as a player and possibly as a coach, but this man had zero of those. He was a record-holding collegiate hitter, professional player, and son of a renowned state high school coach.

But at this school, he was an outsider. He was ousted for an inside man; a gym teacher who had graduated from my alma mater. The gym teacher had colluded with the athletic director and administration to learn everything he could off of this coach, then take over. I spoke against this to anyone who would listen, explaining how it was a terrible thing to do not only to such a coach, but also to the kids. The kids were getting a bad deal. They were losing an amazing opportunity to learn directly from a professional. They won games under this professional. He was relieved of his duties anyway.

I had only myself to blame for the black marks on my resume, but the firing of this coach struck a nerve because he did it all so perfect as a player and a coach. He was a success. He was removed because he was an outsider, and so was a threat to the institution. It takes a big ego as an athletic administrator to remove such an accomplished and respected coach for no reason. Inside ball, at my own high school. Those kids deserve better, and now they are stuck with a politically installed and less capable coach.

The Price of Threatening the Machine

When I first starting writing about my new hitting mechanics, it gained a lot of interest. I published it for free on my blog. I had so many parents interested that I had to write a book. It was a way to get the message out, and that message was well-received in the communities I was involved in. My goal was to reach people with my story, and help parents and players at a very low cost. I wanted to use my experiences to cut straight to the points. I wanted to speak out on how terribly corrupt baseball coaching and administration can be in the real world. I wanted to be honest.

But when it came to social media, I found that groups have administrators with private motives, and competing businesses. My message was too popular, too contrary to their own, and had too much legitimacy. Worst of all, it came from me, instead of them. So I was banned, my posts were flagged, and my concepts were blasted in my absence, or stolen outright. A few went so far as to file reports against my paid advertising, which got my advertising privileges removed.

If you’ve ever dealt with something like this on Facebook, you know that it is a platform with a lot of automated decisions. There are no ways to contact an actual person, and decisions given on violations are not very specific. A person can pretty much flag whatever they want, and if it happens enough, Facebook automatically removes your privileges and leaves you empty-handed to appeal.

Honest coaches would not even think of doing something like this, but baseball is not a sport filled with honest coaches. As it is, there are many deceptive coaches that routinely do things like this to try and put the competition out of business. There are people out there ripping off parents for hundreds, even thousands of dollars, with the wrong coaching, the wrong product, and they have zero qualifications. It just so happens that they administrate a popular social group.

Baseball’s Dirty Secret

The biggest con in baseball coaching is to keep the ruse going. Sell a false product, or preach an uninformed and ineffective method. And if someone better comes along, they are silenced. At the institutional level, a qualified outsider is removed to keep the established power in control of the program. In college, I found out how far a coach would go to deceive me, because I had taken a better opportunity out of high school.

The common thread in all of these situations is the lack of qualification on the part of those in power. They have very little actual baseball expertise or playing experience. For every good message I try to spread, I am countering one spread by another person. For every qualification I have to teach hitting and fitness, I am exposing someone in a position of power who has none. They kissed the ring of their institution, or simply got lucky enough on social media to be in their positions. They are also very good at silencing the truth. It’s a rough business.

I was an insurgent in pro baseball. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I broke the barriers of egotism and politics in coaching and athletic administration when I legitimized myself as a professional player. People saw the home runs, the extra bases I took, and suddenly people wondered where I was from. That did not reflect well on the places where I had been rejected. Me playing well was an insult to their decision making.

So when my blog exploded, I should have expected the backlash. I should’ve known if I was too successful, and my product was too contrarian and too cheap, it would get some nasty pushback from the political machine that runs the game.

Bring Honesty Back to Baseball

That is why I came to Breaking Muscle. It is a place where the wisdom of qualified coaches is what drives the success of the website and the readers. Here, you can share an honest message. If baseball decisions were made with integrity as they are here, I wouldn’t have this experience to write about. There would be no one to warn if talent and qualifications were the most important factor in making baseball decisions. The message I want to bring to parents, and to their wide-eyed, hopeful, baseball playing sons, is the one you were never supposed to hear.

I can’t go back in time and warn myself, or protect supremely qualified coaches from political horseplay. I can only make people aware of the issues that plague the institution of baseball, in an effort to help you find the honest teams and coaches. They are out there, but they are exclusive because they possess abilities and experiences that are very hard to attain.

Always do your homework on the people you encounter in baseball. When was the last time you met a professional baseball player? Do you know what your college coach did before coaching? Is their motive to be a prophet, or to make a profit? Does your coach have the humility to adjust his ideology for the benefit of his players?

I want to bring integrity back to baseball, for the future, the youth, and the love of the game, at every level. I am truly proud of what I accomplished, but I know it can be done better. I will continue to risk my reputation to spread that message.

Is there life after going pro?

My Transition From Professional Baseball to Competitive CrossFit

The post The False Prophets of Baseball appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The One Thing All Scouts Want

The main quality scouts look for is player potential – who you could become on the field and off, rather than who you are now. Scouts know what resources will be available to their players, so they envision what the player will look like after a year or two in the college program or a minor league setting. It’s about the future, not the present.

You cannot control the future. I tried, and it fails 99.9% of the time. So how can you get noticed by the scouts who hold the key to the diamond-shaped castle?

“Once we as scouts get around to watching them play, they need to be a “baseball player” – worried about the things they can control, not what people think of them, focused on having fun and being a good teammate, not worrying about scouts or rankings or the rest of the noise out there.” New York Yankees Northeast Area Scout

Every scout looks for the same thing: potential.

Look the Part

You only have one impression. Make it count. If you show up late, your uniform is dirty, or you look like something out of the Bad News Bears, chances are you will be crossed off the list.

• Clean Your Cleats: Before you get to the field take some scrubbing bubbles, spray your cleats and wipe all of the dirt and dust off. I spent 45 minutes scrubbing black cleats as a high school freshman before going to my first Mets tryout. Excessiveness aside, I looked good and it did wonders for my confidence.
• Wear Clean Pants: If you wear them short, have them hemmed and fitted. If you wear them long, make sure they don’t interfere with your cleats. If you don’t have a fitted pair of pants, high socks or stirrups are a good choice for scouting events. And make sure you have your belt. Nothing looks sloppier than pants without a belt.
• Have the Right Equipment: You shouldn’t have a fourteen-inch glove if you play infield, nor should you have a 11 ¼-inch glove if you play centerfield. Own your position and get the right equipment. If you are a hitter, have your batting gloves, helmet, and bat ready to go. Don’t rely on others to provide what you need. Remember you are all fighting for the same spots.
• Sunglasses or Eye Black: Always bring a pair of sunglasses to the field or wear eye black as a position player. You’d rather be prepared for that high pop fly than fight the elements and look bad doing it. Eye black should be simple. Don’t channel your inner Braveheart.
• Tuck it In: Tuck your shirt in and keep it tucked. End of story.
• Wear Your Hat the Right Way: Like it or not, you are not Fernando Rodney.

Don’t Walk, Run

While pitching for the University of Connecticut (UCONN), I played with one of the most underrated players in the Big East Conference for two years. He was our second baseman and stood about 5’8” tall and weighed about 160lb soaking wet with cinderblocks in his pockets. But none of that mattered. What stood out was not that he was the best player on the field, although often he was, but the fact that he never let anything about an at-bat or error in the field change his passionate approach. He would sprint onto his field position from the dugout no matter what.

He showed up with a clean uniform, but by the end of the game it looked like something out of a mud-wrestling match. Although his numbers were great at UCONN, his passion, leadership abilities, and way he played the game made him stand out from the several first-round picks on the field (including Mike Olt, George Springer, Matt Barnes, and Nick Ahmed). His talent, heart, and hustle eventually helped him get drafted for the Chicago Cubs organization.

“The most successful players I’ve scouted are the ones who love to compete, love to play the game, love the preparation and the push to be better each time out. Those prospects make scouting them fun because they hold themselves to a high standard of what kind of player they want to be and they aren’t concerned about the stuff that becomes distractions.” Matt Hyde, New York Yankees North East Area Scout

Stay Within Yourself

Players who feel they don’t measure up to others or who focus on impressing scouts and coaches often try to stand out by doing something different. Fight the temptation to change your approach to the game. It is important to play the best version of your game, and to showcase the skills you’ve been working on all year.

If you are an average hitter but you can run and field, you’d better make sure that you show those skills. During in and out (pre-game infield and outfield) make sure you hustle onto the field and show enthusiasm while fielding your position. When you try to do something you’re not used to or capable of, you may find yourself unable to stay calm in high-pressure situations. This has manifestations on the field, like gripping the bat or ball a little tighter or making careless mental and physical errors.

Staying within yourself requires a lot of maturity, a quality that all scouts are always looking for. The game is hard enough and putting external pressure on yourself is not necessary. Play your game as best you can and leave it all on the field.

Act Like a Professional

After I read the book Thinking Body, Dancing Mind (I still reference this often as a coach) my motto became ‘Act as if.’ I wrote this in my hats and used it as a mantra that I could go back to when I was struggling on the field. After reading this book my senior year of high school, I made it my daily mission as a baseball player to act as if I was on the mound of a big league park. Imagine yourself as the major leaguer you want to become – the player you want to be.

Acting like a professional entails not showing too much emotion when eyes are on you. The game of baseball is about being consistent and steady, both in your playing abilities and your emotions. Controlling yourself emotionally is a great sign of maturity. Don’t get too high and don’t get too low. That includes celebratory dances after a home run. Act like you’ve been there before.

Baseball is all about being consistent and steady.

Trust Your Game

There is only so much we can do to enhance our natural ability. But we can control the level of attention we apply to the game. When you are performing in front of scouts and coaches, stay confident in your abilities and what you did to prepare. Trust that even if you don’t play your best game, you can still exhibit characteristics that will add value to their program or organization.

Outside of superstars like Mike Trout, the people that go the farthest in this game are those who play the game the correct way and display the unteachable qualities of leadership and preparation.

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Photos courtesy of Shutterstock

The post From Minors to Majors: How to Get Scouted in Baseball appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

All of this is no less true for Tiffany Brooks who is a professional baseball player. She became the first female baseball pitcher in the 21st century to sign a contract with a professional American men’s baseball team when she signed with the Big Bend Cowboys of the Continental Baseball League on March 4, 2010. After successfully completing spring training in 2010 in Alpine, Texas, Brooks became the first female to make an American men’s professional baseball opening day roster since Ila Borders in 2000. She is a 6’1” right-handed pitcher with a full arsenal of pitches.

At age four, Brooks’ dad got her involved in t-ball. She says by age five she was already in love with the game. By eight, she was playing exclusively with boys as a pitcher and at first base. She played with a boys’ travel club team until she was fifteen. When she entered high school though, things changed. She was no longer welcome on a boys’ team, even with players she had played with growing up. In high school, she joined the girls’ softball team. Though Brooks loves softball – “a quick and reactive” game as she calls it – she has always been most deeply passionate about baseball. “I love the pacing of baseball,” Brooks told me. “I love the strategy. It’s hard to explain it. I love and respect softball, but I just love baseball more. It’s what I’ve always wanted and still want to play.”

Brooks finally got her chance to play baseball again in 2007 after getting noticed playing professional softball in Europe. She was picked up in the Netherlands by a third-division amateur all-male baseball league. “In 2007, I was given a chance to play baseball again,” Brooks said. “And I never looked back.”

Since then, Brooks has gained more and more attention in the United States. She is the first and only female to compete in the California Winter League (2011), the Arizona Summer League (2011), the World Free Agent Spring Training event in Florida (2012), and one of two females to ever compete in the Arizona Winter League (2010). Currently, Brooks is a free agent hoping to find a manager “forward thinking enough” to recognize how to use her strengths to a team’s advantage.

When I asked Brooks about the business of baseball and the sexism within it, she was careful with her words. It’s that spotlight again, the one that pioneers attract. The scrutiny she’s under is not for the faint of heart, but she also does not want to come across as someone who complains. She just wants to be a team player and get a fair shot. She does not have to tell me that it hasn’t been easy no matter how good she is.

But when I asked Brooks about the actual game of baseball, her demeanor changed. The joy returned to her voice and she told me about a new, fun pitch she’s working on, a raised finger fastball. “It moves like three feet!” she told me, as if the pitch is a new toy. “The movement is so nasty.” Her voice was open and light. I asked about her other pitches, and she gladly told me about them. She said that she’s had to become a smart pitcher out of necessity. At eighty-one miles per hour, her fastball is far from fast. Instead, she’s had to develop a lot of different pitches that are accurate, have a whole lot of movement, and keep a batter guessing. She has seven different solid pitches at her disposal. “Pitching nowadays has gotten away from finesse. It’s more about dominating the batter with just two or three different pitches. But I’m about changing speeds and moving the ball around. I’m just trying to get the batter off balance with a lot of variety.”

Instead of pressing her to tell me about the sexism she’s experienced in the league, I asked her if there have been players or managers who have surprised her with their acceptance. She told me she’s had the best experiences with catchers. “I’ve played with a few catchers who are the epitome of professionalism and have been one hundred percent supportive. They could’ve cared less what I was. They just wanted to know what pitches I had to get a batter out. Those were the best experiences – working together to get the job at hand done.”

Another thing about being a pioneer is Brooks’ self-appointed obligation to be a walking history book of women in baseball. This stems from her obvious passion for the game, but I get a sense that she feels she cannot let the history die. If she can’t tell it all, then who will be able to? From Brooks, I learned about three women who played in the Negro Leagues in the 1950s with men. I learned about a couple young women who are currently playing college baseball. I learned about a scarce number of women who have also had short stints in the independent baseball leagues. Though I wrote many of the names down, I was more touched by Brooks’ earnest appreciation of every detail, like she was the guardian of this knowledge and it was her duty to not let it be forgotten.

Finally, I asked Brooks what she wanted her legacy to be. She thought for a moment. “I just want to play baseball for the love of the game. No other reason could drive me this way. I wouldn’t have been able to endure all the obstacles.” She paused. “And because of this love, I’ve been able to mentor other girls along the way and hopefully give them hope to one day play. In the long run, if a few girls get just a few more opportunities because of me, it will all be worth it.”

On May 5, Brooks attended the Freedom Pro Baseball League tryouts at Goodyear, Arizona. She said she had a great tryout. “I was one of only four pitchers (out of fifteen total) who got my hitters out one, two, three. No hits, no walks. So between the two tryouts, I faced six batters and got them all out,” she said. “Hopefully that translates into a contract.” We hope so, too.

The post Tiffany Brooks: Blazing the Way for Women in Men’s Pro Baseball appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There are just so many styles of baseball coaches out there. Most literally, there’s a different style for every different type of personality, and right away that means choosing a coach based on style or personality is a bit misguided. As a former player, I can point to a handful of what I’d call exceptional coaches. Each varies so much in style and personality that I can say fully that such characteristics have almost nothing to do with the quality of the coach.

A favorite coach of mine, Tommy Butler for example, was a man from Mississippi who was in his sixties at the time. His style reflected his personality. He was tough. This man was largely crippled and struggled to walk with a cane, but his ability to lead with fear and tough love was incredible. To give you an idea, he’d threaten anyone who crossed him with a pocketknife he kept in his back pocket. Despite being far from able-bodied, no one ever doubted that Coach Butler would kill you on the spot if he wanted. On a mound visit, I once watched him bend down to pick up two pebbles from the dirt and show the pitcher, who was lacking assertiveness in his game. Coach Butler told the pitcher that he figured, “This is probably what it looks like in your jock strap, doesn’t it?”

In contrast, Greg Riddoch was my first manager with the San Diego Padres. He was a big league manager who had it figured out. In professional baseball, I’d argue that a select few players and coaches have it “figured out,” and it’s usually the savvy veterans like “Rid.” He would fish and enjoy down time even amidst the grind of a 140+ game season. He coached with an ultimate calm, which was incredible in an industry that demanded world-class performance with the consequence of your dreams ending literally any moment without notice. He was a manager who felt like he was your father. He had wisdom and compassion, and he told stories that would captivate a dugout like we were all sitting around a fire. You wanted to do well for him. You wanted to win for him. Rid is a true legend.

Clearly, these examples aren’t even in the same ballpark. So, what’s the common thread? At the end of the day these men were able to get the best out of a group of individuals. In my opinion, we can strip down the fringe details of a baseball coach to some critical components that make a great coach:

Process Oriented

This is a common thread across all high-level performers in any sport. Many outside observers, however, miss this concept. Especially in a sport full of failure like baseball, it is critical for coaches, and players alike, to remain unwaveringly committed to the process versus the results. How this is manifested on the coaching side is two fold: 1) having a well-defined plan and 2) working that plan.

The true test of this in coaching is in times of injustice and failure. A traditional manager whose plan is to field a team based on fundamentals and winning by doing the “little things” may find his team down by a run in the top of the ninth inning, for example. With no outs and a runner on second base, the manager’s call ought to be to sacrifice bunt the runner to third and execute with the next hitter to manufacture a run. A manager that deviates from the plan and is swayed by emotion to let the hitter hit in that situation then would violate this concept of “working the plan.” To the men on the field, the results are indifferent. If the hitter hits a homerun and they go on to win, or if he strikes out and they end up losing is redundant. Fans don’t see it that way, though.

A coach who is process oriented will handle results well, regardless whether they are positive or negative outcomes. In many ways a coach who satisfies this requirement, then, will never be a fair-weather coach. They punish poor preparation, attitude, and effort in both victory and defeat. A red flag for a coach who doesn’t meet this standard is a coach that celebrates luck (a poorly struck ground ball through the infield) and condemns misfortune (a line out) in his players.

Standard of Excellence

When a coach sets certain standards of excellence it sets the tone for the development of players and performance in competition. This component of coaching is at the core of leadership, which is largely about getting a group of individuals to start one place and end up in some other different, more improved place. With standards of excellence come great lessons in personal responsibility and motivation.

As players, we’d often joke about the level of excellence that was both expected of us and that we expected of ourselves. We’d realized we didn’t even know what the punishment was for being late to a meeting or practice, because no one dared to risk it. We just assumed that showing up late meant the end of your career, death, or both.

In a high performance group, you are often competing against others willing to do any and everything to out perform you. If you aren’t willing to demand your best in everything you do, then you’re primed for failure. A great coach of mine often rammed home the idea that, “We can’t lose batting practice!” Much like he’d demand that, “We can’t be beat in our travel attire on the plane.” A red flag in this category is a coach who tolerates anything less than excellence in some players and not others.

Respect

In a game built in large part on timeless, unwritten rules, respect is a critical component in any good coach. Don’t misinterpret this for likeability. Remember, good coaches and teammates don’t need to be friends. Heck, they don’t even need to like each other. They do, however, need to find a way to respect each other during play.

A good coach will always defend his players. This is a sight to see as a fan. From the outside looking in you can see a coach who is seemingly apathetic at best about a particular player flip a switch if that player is in need of help. For example, a player who gets in a disagreement with an umpire on a call is obliged by the unwritten laws of baseball to defend his player at all costs. A player may clearly be in the wrong about questioning an umpire’s call, and regardless as to whether the coach agrees, the coach will charge the umpire, remove the player from harm’s way, and attack the umpire relentlessly, even risking his own ejection. It’s a display of respect and it is a coach’s duty.

Respect isn’t just about fights and arguments either. Good coaches, like good teammates, will never throw a player under the bus. All matters are handled “in house” and no matter how in the wrong a player is, a coach will never speak negatively of his players in the media or otherwise. Respect is woven into nearly every unwritten rule in the game. A red flag for a coach who doesn’t meet this criterion is a coach who will “show up” a player, by outing him or disrespecting him in the field of play.

Keep in mind these types of insights are next-level types of insights. Looking for such attributes in a tee ball coach may leave you frustrated. As players develop into high school and beyond, these characteristics of their coaches will become apparent. It’s important to note, though, that in coaches like anything else, quality is rare.

Photos 2 & 3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post How to Choose the Right Baseball Coach For You appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Currently, there are options for surgical repair for a SLAP tear, but there is no guarantee the athlete is going to make a full recovery. The procedure for repair varies widely and most times does not allow for the player to return playing at the same level as before the injury. Fortunately, researchers from Methodist Center for Sports Medicine in Houston, Texas suggest that non-surgical treatment may be more beneficial than the surgical options available today.¹

David Lintner, MD led a team in a review of 119 professional baseball players who had persistent shoulder pain that limited their ability to compete. Sixty-eight of the players had documented MRIs that showed SLAP lesions and had failed physical therapy. Initially, all patients were treated with non-surgical techniques according to an algorithm focused on correcting the scapular dyskinesia and posterior capsular tightness.²

Abnormal movement of the shoulder blade (scapula) is known as scapula dyskinesis. This occurs in a variety of shoulder problems. It is an important sign of an underlying shoulder disorder and a guide to shoulder rehabilitation.³ Posterior capsular tightness is a common cause of shoulder pain in which the patient has restricted internal rotation and pain. Patients often have pain that mimics that reported with impingement syndrome.⁴

Among the sixty-eight players who had SLAP lesions, forty five were pitchers. The return to competition seemed to happen at a higher rate (73%) for position players compared to that of pitchers (40%). “Our research showed that nonsurgical treatment of SLAP tears was more often successful than surgery, and in position players more frequently than for pitchers,” said Lintner. “We need more research to determine why the nonsurgical treatment was more beneficial to one population than the other, but our findings did illustrate that nonsurgical treatment should be preferred.”⁵

“Returning to the same level of competition as before the injury, is almost always difficult for an athlete, and surgery is often thought of as the best avenue. With additional research, orthopedists are finding different routes to treat some of the most common throwing injuries,” said Lintner.⁶

Based on this research, it may come to be that shoulder surgery may not always be necessary for baseball players. The idea of surgery is often accompanied with negative connotations, especially with pitchers, since they never seem to fully bounce back to their full potential. Hopefully as more research is conducted, shoulder surgery for baseball players, or athletes with the same injury, will be a thing of the past.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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No matter the era, bat speed has always been important in baseball. An increased bat speed results in possible longer decision time, decreased swing time, and increased ball velocity. Up to now, there have been many reports that muscular strength and leg power were the important components for increasing bat swing speed. A recent study was performed to determine the relationship between upper-body strength and bat speed in high school players, as well as the relationship between bat swing speed, bench power, and isokinetic chest press.¹

This newest study consisted of 30 male high school baseball players, all of which had at least five years of competitive experience. The participants practiced 3 hours a day, 6 days a week. Players who were considered “homerun hitters” were placed in one group, while the others were placed in a “mediocre” group. The same bat was used for all participants, a 907 gram Mizuno metal bat, which was 83 centimeters long. Bat speed was measured 3 times for each player, with the top speed being recorded.²

Since bat speed is often associated with upper-body strength, baseball players frequently use the bench press in their training programs in an effort to increase performance. So, for this study each player had to determine his one rep max on bench press. Next, the isokinetic chest press (uses the same movements as a traditional bench press, but with different types of muscle contractions) was performed at three speed patterns. A bench power test was used to evaluate upper-body muscle power for each subject, and peak velocity and peak power were calculated.³

The results of the study showed significant and middle correlations with bat speed and one-rep max on the bench press and isokinetic chest press. The group with the “homerun hitters” had significantly higher values in bench power and isokinetic chest press than the other group.⁴

It can be concluded that bench power may be a beneficial to add to a training program to help improve hitting power in baseball. Researchers also concluded that the best way to build power might not be through performing a one-rep max, but rather through working with lighter resistance loads.⁵

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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