A few years ago, there was a round table discussion on the MLB channel that was discussing the epidemic of arm injuries in professional baseball. Tom House (the guy in the Million Dollar arm movie), several doctors, scouts and a moderator. Some astounding statistics were brought up with regards to serious arm injuries in professional baseball. It was/is costing major league baseball a fortune. One of the stats that caught my eye was that 40% of all D1 pitchers will have or already had Tommy John surgery. Speaking form my own personal experience, I have not met a former Minor league pitcher who does not have a zipper. My point is that it is very common. Some of the causes of the injuries proposed was too many pitches in one outing; meaning pitchers were throwing past the point where they were tired. Throwing too many breaking balls too early was another cause. I know one of the solutions was for MLB to step in an encourage amateur baseball to regulate pitch count and rest and also establish pitching distance for age groups. For example: 45 feet for 12 and younger, 48 for 13, 54 for 14 and 60'6" for 15 and older. (I am just giving examples, don't hold me to the exact numbers ). One doctor also proposed that in his opinion one of the biggest factors in arm injury was that too many young men throw too hard too early. He said that if you are throwing over 90 MPH consistently at age 16 or below, that you are asking for trouble because the elbow ligaments j cannot take the stress. On a related thought Dr. Kremchek believes that a pitcher should stop pitching for 3 months out of the year and engage in a period of active rest.