Major League Baseball pitchers are throwing faster than ever. And they’re also getting injured more often. About one in three pitchers has had Tommy John surgery to reconstruct a torn ulnar collateral ligament in the arm.
In 2024, MLB issued a study on the growth in arm injuries among pitchers, but not many changes have been made to prevent them. Pitchers are pressured to throw at maximum effort all the time, despite the harm it does to their bodies.
Here & Now‘s Scott Tong talks to Jeff Passan, reporter for ESPN and author of the book “The Arm.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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