Play Book Tag discussion

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan - 4 stars - My GR Review

In writing this book, Jeff Passan set out to answer two questions: “I sat in laboratories, saw doctors tend to bodies living and dead, went halfway across the globe to a place where the problem is even greater, read medical studies, and scavenged through data, all to answer two vital questions: How did baseball fail the pitching arm, and what can be done to save it?”

He calls attention to an important issue that impacts not only major league pitchers, but children that aspire to become a baseball player, particularly a pitcher: “Elbows are breaking more than ever and younger than ever. And while the rash of Tommy John surgeries that spread across Major League Baseball over the last five years took out some of the game’s finest pitchers, children ages fifteen to nineteen make up a disproportionately high number of patients. Baseball is thus left scrambling to figure out how to keep its million-dollar arms healthy while fixing a feeder system that keeps sending damaged goods to major league teams.”

What he found is that, while data could be used to figure out what could be done about this epidemic in sports injury to help everyone, and in today’s “numbers era” metrics are more readily available than ever before: “Baseball nevertheless has fostered an environment in which all thirty teams treat pitchers’ health as proprietary information instead of banding together to solve the sport’s greatest mystery.”

With today's increasing emphasis on velocity, overuse and excessive maximum-effort throwing are two of the primary culprits. In addition, to exploring the various technical solutions, describing ulnar collateral ligament (UCL aka Tommy John) surgery in vivid detail, and interviewing some of the most celebrated players in the game (such as Sandy Koufax), Passan focuses on the human side of the story by following two major league pitchers, Daniel Hudson and Todd Coffey, to find out how they cope during downtime required during the rehabilitation process.

Some of the interesting highlights of this book include:
- Visiting baseball-obsessed Japan
- Bringing to light to perils involved in kids’ participation in the travel circuit and showcase tournaments
- Investigating the latest technological and scientific developments in the field

I found it well-written and informative. While there are no guaranteed solutions, there are recommendations and steps to be taken to prevent injuries. Baseball fans and anyone interested in the root causes of the rising number of arm injuries will find a wealth of fascinating material in this book. Parents of kids with a passion for baseball will gain insight into how to help keep their arms healthy.

This sounds really interesting,perhaps a bit technical on the baseball side, as I am more of a casual fan.

I've been to a few baseball games in South Korea, and man they are quite a different experience than here in the US.