Kid's game shouldn't lead to life of pain

There used to be a time when youngsters played sports when they wanted to, just to have fun, not when they had to, to remain competitive in their specialty youth sport.

And those days when kids would play an occasional pickup game of baseball, softball, basketball or football not only speak to a simpler time, but a safer time. Today, many kids tend to concentrate on one sport, and play it almost year-round. That, in turn, raises the risk of injury.

As we noted in this space last May, orthopedic surgeons were reporting an alarming increase in the number of youngsters having a major elbow operation. It is commonly known as Tommy John surgery, named for the first major leaguer to successfully undergo the procedure and return to pitching. John used to pitch for the White Sox.

Noted sports orthopedist Dr. James Andrews blamed the increase in Tommy John surgery on the wear and tear of boys pitching far too many innings for too many weeks in the year.

Now comes a new report by the Associated Press noting an increase in injuries such as stress fractures and torn knee ligaments among youth sports participants.

These injuries are particularly alarming. There is not always a good treatment available to young athletes to prevent permanent damage. Indeed, Dr. Mininder Kocher, an orthopedic surgeon at Children's Hospital Boston, is leading a government study aimed at finding the best treatment for children who tear the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) while growth plates around the knee are still maturing.

Some orthopedic surgeons suspect more kids' knees are getting blown out for the same reason elbows are being shredded - youth sports have become much more intense. Kids play one sport and continue to compete and train long after the traditional season for their event has ended. They get little time away from their sport.

Certainly a torn ACL can happen anytime and can't altogether be blamed on overuse of the knee. But the more the youngster plays, the better the chance of a serious injury.

Little League Baseball was wise to impose limits on the number of pitches that can be thrown in a game. It would also be a good idea to limit the number of games and training hours the youngest of our athletes now play and put into their sport, as a buffer against increased risk of injury. And, of course, always stress injury prevention.

Suburban youth sports organizations, and parents who push their children to make elite travel teams in the hope they will become stars in high school and beyond, should keep this in mind:

"I wonder what these kids are going to be like 20 to 30 years down the road," Kocher said. "Will we have a whole new generation of middle-aged adults with early arthritis?"

The worst a kid used to face in a pickup game was a sprained ankle or maybe a broken leg. A few weeks later, he or she would be fine.

Now in the ultracompetitive world of youth sports, we're setting up kids for a lifetime of pain with a premature pummeling of their still-developing bodies.