National body shoots down Japan’s 1st high school baseball pitch limit

On Wednesday the Japan High School Baseball Federation asked Niigata Prefecture’s high school federation to reconsider the pitch limit it announced for this year’s spring prefectural tournament.

The rule, announced unilaterally by the Niigata body in December without consulting the national federation, would have prevented pitchers from working in another inning after they had thrown 100 pitches.

Niigata’s decision sent shockwaves through Japan, where the two iconic high school tournaments at historic Koshien Stadium outside of Osaka are the nation’s biggest spectacle, and marathon pitching efforts part of the lore.

In making its announcement in Osaka, the national federation said it would convene a panel of experts in April to study how to prevent pitching injuries. Although there had been some words of condemnation for Niigata acting on its own, the national federation’s decision should not be seen as an effort to turn back the clock. This month, Daichi Suzuki, the chief of Japan’s Sports Agency praised the bravery of Niigata’s authorities and called on the national high school federation to act.

Osamu Shimada, a high school vice principal in Niigata Prefecture who was the project leader behind the plan to curb injuries to baseball players, said by telephone, “We have pushed the hands of the clock forward.”

Shimada, who became a teacher and a high school baseball coach after his own playing career ended in university, said Niigata was uniquely situated to upset high school baseball’s apple cart.

“We were able to put together a committee of elementary, junior and senior high school baseball authorities. Because we are weak (in national tournaments) we could find common cause at all levels,” he said. “This is something other prefectures with strong local bodies couldn’t do.”

“We are a small prefecture in terms of population and the number of kids who want to play baseball is dwindling. We want to change that. but there are so many other sports one could play, so why would a young athlete choose a sport where a lot of players get hurt?”

“We don’t know that 100 pitches is the best solution, but our plan is to collect data, learn and move forward. We felt if we didn’t act it would be too late. There was a sense of urgency.”

Getting to the root of the problem

This is the second part of a series centering around my interview with a leading Tommy John surgeon in Japan, Dr. Kozo Furushima.

Dr. Furushima
Dr. Kozo Furushima

Amid all the talk of the first pitch limits in Japan’s high school baseball world, Japan’s national elementary school tournament quietly received a 70-pitch limit this year. Working with the reform-minded head of the Japan Rubber Baseball Federation, Toyomi Munakata, Furushima assisted in the drive for change in Japan’s dogma-driven baseball world.

In this part, Furushima discusses the changes to this year’s system and gets down to the nuts and bolts of Japan’s problem — endless practice among players at the youngest ages that lead to more serious injuries as players grow older.

“I’ve been studying this issue for 12 or 13 years, in different sports but mainly baseball,” Furushima said. “I’ve examined the injuries of 6,000 to 7,000 baseball players, with more than 2,000 surgeries on baseball players alone. Why is it that junior high school and high school kids have to have surgery? I was thinking that for a long time.”

In the interview, Dr. Furushima explains avulsion fractures, caused when the pull from a ligament yanks the part of the bone it is attached to free from its surrounding bone.

Avulsion fracture X-Rays

These medial elbow avulsion fractures, if allowed to rest, will heal naturally, he said.

“Compared to adults, kids recover more quickly,” Furushima said. “For example, if a child breaks a bone, it will heal about a week faster than that of an adult. Adult bones take a month to regrow, children take about three weeks.”

Unfortunately, with kids practicing their sports year round, the time required to rest is very difficult to get. Compounding this, he said, is that the fractures only cause pain when under extreme stress. They don’t hurt in day-to-day activities so sufferers may not even realize the need for rest and treatment.

Dr. Furushima believes that about half the kids playing youth baseball between the fifth and seventh grades may have suffered from medial elbow avulsion fractures. His facility performed a study, with coaches alert to the problem bringing in their teams for examination. Of the 406 players examined, 167 showed signs of the injury.

“We had 406 children come for tests as part of a study. They didn’t particularly want to come,” Furushima said. “Of them, 167 had a history of pain in their inner elbow, 41.1 percent. These players came with their teams, whose coaches had a good awareness of the situation. These were good teams and even then, 40 percent had a history of pain. I have to think that among the teams that would never participate, the percentage would be higher than the teams whose coaches would willingly take part.”

Youth player survey

Although the consequences of these injuries are not overwhelming when the kids are young, as their bones become mature and more rigid, the fractures that have not healed are going to be a problem, particularly for ballplayers who have to throw hard using joints in which the ligament is loose and not properly attached to the bone.

In the MRIs below, the loose ligaments in the previously injured elbow can be seen as a squiggly line.

Injury consequences

Find the full story on Kyodo News HERE.

The introduction to the series was posted on Feb. 17.

All graphics courtesy of Dr. Furushima, Keiyu Orthopaedic Hospital Sports Medical Center.

writing & research on Japanese baseball

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