I found this link while stumbling arounf the Baseball Canada webpage, thought it was interesting.

Interested in hearing some thoughts

Baseball Canada Protecting Arms

new pitching rules for 2008 have been approved. Below is a summary of the rule.

Listed below is the maximum amount of pitches per calendar day:

Minor & Major Mosquito – 70 pitches
Minor & Major Peewee – 80 pitches
Minor & Major Bantam – 90 pitches
Minor & Major Midget, Women – 100 pitches
(NOTE: If the pitcher reaches this limit while facing a batter, the pitcher may complete pitching to that batter).

Listed below is the maximum amount of pitches per day without requiring two nights rest:

Minor & Major Mosquito – 45 pitches
Minor & Major Peewee – 55 pitches
Minor & Major Bantam – 65 pitches
Minor & Major Midget, Women – 75 pitches

here is the document with the full rule from Baseball Ontario

http://www.baseballontario.com/Constitution/2008_Approv...ing_Rule_Changes.pdf

Thanks for the documnet blexann, very interesting!

I would love to know how they will enforce those counts. Most teams and the organizers do not do pitche counts. You are lucky if they keep any stats at all.
The mosquito counts seem high.

What they need is to have qualified instruction for pitchers as stated in my vanishing post. In 6+ years of playing OBA we never had an arm injury under the old rules. Our team got proper instruction on their own.

quote:

Originally posted by BobbleheadDoll:
I would love to know how they will enforce those counts. Most teams and the organizers do not do pitche counts. You are lucky if they keep any stats at all.

That's a very good question, I'm curious to see how that happens as well, the only time I've really seen it happen is in tournaments

Coahces that do not keep stats should not be coaching in my opinion. (when I started coaching house league I kept stats!)

From what I have witnessed at both my kids age groups coaches like to ride arms as long as possible. On my younger sons AAA pewee team the coach, despite having many good arms on the team, used 2 starters all year long and by the time playoffs/provincials came around guess what.... both pitchers were done..they had nothing left - THERE IS NO EXCUSE for this.

When my son played OBA there were inning limits which may not be the best way to limit pitches. How ever I can only think of one or 2 guys who had any arm issues and they were power pitchers who had terrible mechanics.
One of the problems is that they do not address the guys like my son who played on 4 teams in a season. He monitored himself and had no arm issues. Proper medical examination kept him at low risk. Too many coaches do not understand the elements of throwing a ball. We were fortunate to have great advice. I was talking to one of my son's former coaches and tried to get him to have my son's chyroprctor talk to the players at a workout and he said no to it. I was very surprised that he would not want the help. Makes me think that that coach doen't quite understand the importance of proper mechanics.
Blex they are breaking the old rules at that level. I believe it was Mgor bantam that the rules didn't apply anymore.

I think alot of it has to do with the fact that many Coaches aren't paid, if they were paid then I think we'd see more Coaches take more care about their players.

I agree . The head coaches are supposed to be level 2 certified. Most coaches are dads who have no knowldge of pitching.
When I go to OBA games I see some poor mechanics and no one to correct them. A good athlete can have a natural delivery but they are at risk. they often pitch through pain and many get injuries they don't even know they have.

quote:

Originally posted by BobbleheadDoll:
Most coaches are dads who have no knowldge of pitching.I see some poor mechanics and no one to correct them. A good athlete can have a natural delivery but they are at risk. they often pitch through pain and many get injuries they don't even know they have.

Paid coaches would be a good idea but that's just not going to happen (at least not in OBA).

As for certification, even a NCCP 2 coach does not guarantee much in the way of knowing pitching mechanics because some(many) coach’s get their certification because they have to not because they are genuinely interested in learning. I my self am level 2 certified and have met with Remo Cardinale, Marc Picard and Rick Johnston. Before becoming certified I researched a ton on pitching and hitting - and I still do. Just do a google search on pitching/hitting mechanics and there is literally a ton of information.

The comment on power pitchers is correct. My son’s team had 2 of them who just through hard and as I stated before the coach rode them all year. We have the same coach this year and now, because of the new pitching rules (and the fact that the league was aware of what he did last year), he will have to come up with a proper pitching rotation or risk running out of pitchers or worse a serious injury.

Remo and Marc are knowlegeble about pitching. Rick is a hitting guy. All 3 are with Team O Inc. There are several great coaches but they are mostly in the Elite teams.
Remo works with Mississauga North of the OBA.

Interesting read. I passed the article along to some other coaches that I work with.

Out west, here in Alberta we used this blueprint for last season. It worked well with the exception of a few loopholes used by some coaches. The reputable coaches and quality organizations used the rules as they were meant to be and things worked very well. The bottom line has to be the kids' health. We hoped these rules would help prevent coaches from "riding" the arms for gain. The solid organizations lived by the rules with success. A few coaches found the loopholes and some kids are hurting for it (it didn't show up until the us college fall season), which is too bad because the kids futures are at stake due to a championship run.