Little League Rules Protect Pitchers' Arms

In 2007 Little League Baseball dropped its decades-old pitching rules - which limited pitchers age 12 and under to six innings per week and six innings per game, with the number of innings increasing for older age groups - in favor of rules based on pitch count. The number of allowable pitches is now based on the pitcher's age and rules now mandate specific rest periods between pitching appearances when a pitcher reaches higher thresholds of pitches delivered in a day. [For a summary of the new rules, click here]

The new rules were hailed by Dr. James Andrews, medical director of the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama and perhaps the world's foremost authority on pitching injuries and so-called "Tommy John" elbow reconstructive surgery, as the "most important injury prevention step ever initiated in youth baseball - certain to serve as the youth sports injury prevention cornerstone and inspiration for other youth organizations to take the initiative to get serious about injury prevention in youth sports."

In announcing the new pitch count rule in 2006, the first by a national youth baseball organization, Little League's president and CEO, Stephen D. Keener, called "upon all youth baseball organizations, including travel leagues, to implement their own pitch count programs in the interest of protecting young pitching arms."

The new pitch count rule follows on the heels of Little League's adoption of a new rule, now fully implemented, mandating the use of breakaway bases.

Little League has thus far not instituted a ban on curve balls - which experts, like Dr. Andrews, say pitchers shouldn't be throwing until they are old enough to shave (around 14 1/2 or 15) because it puts too much stress on their developing bodies and dramatically increases the chances of career-threatening or career-ending elbow problems when the athlete is in high school or college - saying only that it is "looking" at the problem.