Chasing the Dream of Playing Baseball While Limiting Injuries

WFSB Eyewitness News—November 2, 2015

WFSB Eyewitness News' Eric Parker reports that Tommy John Surgery has become increasingly more common in baseball pitchers before they even graduate high school. The segment reports that this is in large part due to overuse of a pitcher's throwing arm and its impact on the elbow. Eric discusses this phenomenon with former Major League Baseball pitcher John Smoltz and David W. Altchek, MD, a sports medicine surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery.

"If I told you to stand here and hold your arm up for the next hour, you'd get fatigued and your arm angle would drop. Same thing happens to pitchers, they get fatigued and drop their arm angle and that seems to increase the load on the elbow a lot," Dr. Altchek said.

This segment originally appeared at www.wfsb.com.