Should Curveballs be Banned in the Little League?

Wouldn’t it be amazing to be only 10 years old and be able to throw the perfect curveball?  Well, curveballs can cause a very painful elbow injury and the only way to cure it is Tommy John Surgery. Should kids really go through this pain?  According to google, “youth pitchers who throw too many curveballs report more pain than if they simply threw a fastball.”

Doctors say to decline Tommy John Surgery there should not be curveballs in Little League.  CNN Health says, “The number of surgeries went up 34% in the past 15 years.” This means the number of curveballs went up a lot in only a little bit of time.  Mark Derewicz of the University of North Carolina says, “Parents and coaches don’t want kids to throw curveballs because of the twist when they release it.”  

A good pitcher in Little League only needs to throw different speeds and throw at different parts of the strike zone.  Players and coaches should know that Tommy John Surgery is a serious procedure. Tommy John Surgery takes one year to recover from.  As you can see curveballs should not be allowed in Little League since an elbow injury will take very long to recover from. 

This is a graph of Tommy John Surgery from 1974 to 2014. This graph shows the great increase of Tommy John Surgeries needed proving that more players continue to get injured as time goes on.