Baseball Injuries
The Most Common Baseball Injuries
Are Typically Not Career Ending
Baseball Injuries are as a general rule not life threatening nor truly serious enough to be considered serious or to cause a baseball career ending action.
Any injury of a healthy body is somewhat serious but with basic and proper care will heal and clear up with no lasting harm or to the point of no long lasting impairment to normal back to playing baseball.
I was taught while as a youngster growing up playing football, basketball and baseball that one of the very best preventive medicines for any of these sports, which included my baseball, was to keep my entire body in superb physical condition.
Players keeping all the bodies muscles in shape physically sustain far and beyond less than the out of shape loafers. Those players and the ones dragging up the rear on any of the physical exercises or running drills will be the first to go down due to an injury.
There are many rules of thumb to use which if followed will leave one in much better frame of reference to cope and be well ahead of the rest of any competitive field of athletics.
Concerned about baseball injuries you should conquer or master the trepidation or manifest fear factor of getting injured or hurt again by dwelling upon the positive. Maintain good routine for baseball fitness or physical conditioning and injuries seem to keep away.
Here is what you should consider good physical condition as opposed to bulging muscles or being a marathon runner. If! you have the physical body strength to maintain body control by easily handling your total body weight in any body movement or configuration then you are in good physical condition.
Here are some benchmark tests:
These above actions are some actions or rules of thumb which will tell you if you have body and strength conditioning to handle your own body weight and are or not in relative good physical condition.
Here are some of the more common or most common plaguing baseball injuries which will or can hinder a baseball player some time during his baseball playing season or career.
- Dislocated or Broken fingers
- Strawberries on Leg and Hip
- Sprained Wrist
- Hyperextended Knee
- Hamstring Pull
- Sore Elbow
- Shoulder Injury
Moms and Dads some real encouragement, using statistics in all the years of professional Major League Baseball, now something like shall we say 150 years, there has only been one (1) on the field fatality in the entire history for the game of major league baseball.
The seven (7) common injuries as identified above is by no means all of the type of injuries which might occur to an athlete but they are the more frequent or most common for baseball.
The most serious safety item facing the ball playing youngsters from Tee ball through college level of play is the use of the Aluminum or Metallic composite bats.
Click and read about the BESR Bat Certification problem associated with the use of the aluminum bats.
Youth baseball safer game after injury that led to $14.5M settlement in Louisville Slugger lawsuit in 2012.
Youth and high school baseball leagues in North Jersey have made major strides in bat safety since Wayne New Jersey Little Leaguer was severely injured after being struck in the chest by a batted ball off an aluminum bat in 2006.
The issue of bat safety has returned to the forefront again during August 2012 after a state judge in New Jersey awarded a $14.5 million settlement against the maker of the Louisville Slugger bat and organizers of youth baseball.
It comes at a time when leagues and organizations nationwide appear to be more conscious of safety than ever before.
Some of the most notable changes this year have occurred at the high school level. High school baseball teams in North Jersey switched to the new Batted Ball Coeffcient (BBCOR) bats last spring after the National Federation of State High School Associations adopted the bats as a national standard.
Instead of measuring the speed of the ball after it is hit, BBCOR measures the "bounciness" of the ball and bat — what experts call the "trampoline" effect. When a bat hits a ball, the ball compresses/deforms by nearly a third at high pitch velocities.
This (BBCOR)Batted Ball Coeffcient is another new item introduced into baseballs lexicon of talk and is significant for safety purposes involving the materiel composition of bats.
After having digressed onto the safety issue surrounding the use of the aluminum bat let's return to the seven common injuries we encounter out there on the ball diamond.
Shoulder Injury:
Now for the most common and most serious as far as causing the close of ones' playing the game of baseball or shall we say, "Career Ending Injuries" is the Shoulder Injury.
A shoulder injury if it will not respond adequately to surgery mending spells doom for a baseball players career.
Baseball player unable to throw or swing the bat with authority is washed up and his being an effective player is over and it is the end of his career.
Baseball injury of the shoulder is predominantly associated with injury to the arm and shoulder of the pitching or throwing arm and shoulder. Using medical terminology we call the most common of this shoulder injury "A torn rotator Cuff."
Pitchers are the ones most prone to suffer this injury however, all baseball playing throwing arms are subject to afflicting an injury or tear of the rotator-Cuff.
The performance tactics used by throwing the baseball really hard involves many body parts. Throwing baseballs and Hitting a baseball with power and authority uses the entire physical body.
Throwing and Hitting uses arm muscles, tendons, nerve endings, and every bone joint, wrist, elbow, shoulder,and every major muscle group of his abdomen, his back and his legs.
At the top of the arm and at the connection of the shoulder is a group of muscle and tendons known as the Rotator-Cuff.
Shoulder Rotator-Cuff: Baseball players and fans alike have heard this term mentioned many times but had not the foggiest idea or visualized what it was.
Rotator: one that rotates or causes rotation: a muscle that partially rotates a part on its axis.
Rotator-Cuff: a supporting and strengthening structure of the shoulder joint that is made up of the capsule of the shoulder joint blended with tendons and muscles as they pass to the capsule or across it to insert on the head of the humerus.
Now you have it. At the top of the arm (humerus i:e upper arm bone) at the shoulder joint is a clasp of muscle and tendons which causes or allows the shoulder to rotate. The rotator-cuff can become injured by significant over stressed pressures causing a tear at the rotator-cuff.
Over stressed or torn rotator cuff has a painful and crippling consequences for this clasp of muscle and tendon of the shoulder.
Rest might heal a slight stress but a tear generally requires surgery and which is usually a good and permanent cure but there is no guarantees of 100 percent recovery even after surgery repairs.
NOW YOU HAVE A FEEL FOR HOW AND WHY THE SHOULDER INJURY IS THE MOST SERIOUS. IT CAN END A CAREER.
Sore Elbow
No one who has ever played the game of baseball can claim he has never had a sore elbow from playing baseball and throwing the baseball as hard as he could just to be showing out.
Baseball sometimes requires a little macho one ups-man-ship like a game of "burn out" with two players throwing harder and harder to his buddy or teammate just to find out which one slacks off first.
Well good folks the elbow does a lot of magnificent things well and it does a superb job when trying to muscle your chin over the chin up bar.
Now throwing a baseball and heaving the elbow joint with the most velocity you can and suddenly stopping or slowing the fling causes stress at the elbow bone joint. Be tough if you will but tender hurt can surely come calling at the elbow joint.
Hamstring Pull
Many a super star baseball player with strong well muscled legs blessed with running speed is prone to have a pulled hamstring burn a little or much.
The most recent Super-Star with often and recurring problem with hamstring pull is Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Mickey Mantle with his legs which provided him with exceptional and even what we know as blazing speed had a career fraught with leg injuries not only at the hamstrings but the knees as well.
Mantles entire career and Pujols continuing career caused these players as well as many more to suffer but endure ever present hamstring muscle pull problems. Baseball injuries yes but not immediate career ending as a rule.
Hyper-extended Knee
Baseball players playing all out with total concentration of catching up to and grabbing a fly ball from the air are prone to being candidates for hyper-extended knee injuries.
Outfielders generally have well manicured and meticulously prepared outfields (or pasture) to roam running at full speed when playing in the Major Leagues of Baseball.
This field maintenance is not so well kept in the sand lot or the semi pro leagues. Gopher holes or washed out depressions in the outfield is more prevalent than not.
What happens on occasion is a baseball player running stretched to his limit, with a foot landing awkwardly in such a spot, will cause hyper-extension of the players knee joint.
He may not fall in a heap and he may after making the catch getting rid of the ball walk off the hurt. Walking off the immediate hurt is one thing but take my word for it the soreness of the knee joint will linger.
A player with proper attention to this soreness will recover and often forget this hurt. Lack of healing attention and allowed aggravating of the soreness and causing recurrent injury may come back to haunt years later with knee joint soreness.
One other source of receiving hyper-extended knee injury is in not properly executing a slide to a base. The awkward jamming of your baseball spikes into a base which is pretty well fixed into place can let a knee joint take a lick or twist in the wrong direction.
Hurt is there and can even reappear as soreness now or into the future but most players play through such hurt and play right on into a full career. Sprained Wrist
A sprained wrist of baseball incurred injury requires paying close attention on applying cold initially while later using heat and to use movement of the hand for the swelling and pain to clear. Have heart for as a rule the swelling and pain leaves soon and you will be fine and fit as fiddle in a few days.
The wrist is used so much in everyday usage it is pliable and flexible and may withstand most jolts and hard knocks but now and again a player will use a hand catching it in a precarious position trying to prevent a serious fall.
Many times when fielding a ground ball an infielder or outfielder dives or stretches past his limit and the body goes out of control. Tumble as such with a hand reaching out and body weight overloads the strength of the hand and wrist thus a severe or moderate wrist sprain results.
Outfielders many times take acrobatic tumbles in the outfield chasing fast dropping line drive hit balls can easily come up lame injuring the wrist for the effort.
Base runner after base runner when reaching first base tries to taunt and distract the pitcher by dancing away from the bag to feint a steal.
A pitcher will put up with such monkey shines just to a point the look out Jim Bob for he will suddenly swirl around and fire over to his first-sacker. If he catches the runner between moves just right the runners only recourse is to dive violently back to the bag.
Look out wrist for that white colored first base sack is nailed down tighter than Dicks hat band. Base doesn't move body weight slams the hand and wrist against something akin to and like a rock and a hard place.
It hurts and it swells but the wrist is not broken so in a few days after applying cold compresses immediately and a day or two of warm water soaking and massage ole monkey shine will be ready to try it again.
Strawberries on Leg and Hip
Mom I told you not to let Bubba suit up without outfitting him with some sliding pads.
Boy does this type of injury hurt burns and stings like the dickens and the wrong soothing medication will play a trick. Some medication with a little alcohol in it, or some witch hazel, and the feller will holler like a wild banshee jump up like a jack-from-the-box and out run a rabbit.
Folks relax if this is the worst hurt coming in the form of baseball injuries then player are all going to be OK. Rough looking raw flesh spots on his leg hips and rump from sliding into a base trying to be safe then all is well.
We surely do not want to sustain a baseball injuries such as hyper-extended knee or a broken ankle in a poorly controlled rambunctious slide.
Tender to the touch and easy on the sit down for a day or two but time heals all. Now that Bubba knows a hard well executed hook slide will give him safe passage to the base. Get him some sliding pads for peeled skin strawberry burn protection to prevent this baseball injuries.
Dislocated or Broken Fingers
Baseball players know a baseball is hard as a rock and moves through the air and on the ground like a steel pellet from a slingshot. Misplaced off center baseball glove webbing and those fingers taste the baseball injuries with a kiss of the ball in a very stinging way.
Infielders playing this game of baseball have all experienced the painful slap of a baseball against the un-gloved hand by misjudgment. A finger exposed in any angle other than open flexed mode must endure a crunch of finger joints being placed askew and dislocated or broken.
Check the hands of any well seasoned catcher and you will see fingers with little knots at the finger joints. He will show you readily for they are marks received by many a battle trying to corral little baseball quickly to retain base runners from advancing.
Catchers are a breed of player willing to accept baseball injuries such as hurt fingers.
If your forte' is to always have beautiful hands like a pretty Hollywood starlet then never consider the game of baseball for your life's work.
Dislocated or even a broken finger is common happenings on the baseball fields and practice diamonds around the league.
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