Leading off today: This relates to more than just high school sports, but I wanted to give it a mention because it's an oddity when Tommy John's name starts turning up in the news almost as much as Lindsay Lohan.
Following up on a report I also mentioned last month, Dr. Josh Dines and Dr. Rock Positano of Manhattan's Joe DiMaggio Sports Medicine Center are asking whether there is too much "Tommy John Surgery" being done on athletes.
Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) reconstruction has helped many professional baseball players, but the doctors say it is becoming a much more common procedure in high school athletes. According to a recent study, about one in nine players in Major League Baseball had undergone the procedure as of 2006. Without citing specific evidence, the doctors suggest that while improvements in medical technique make the procedure more readily available across the board, kids are throwing too much and getting hurt too often.
But here's what caught my eye, because it's entirely logical but something I'd never really considered. Though many leagues now have mandatory pitch counts and minimum rest periods between game appearances, there's usually nothing stopping a player from being on multiple teams at the same time over the summer.
"That being said," the doctors wrote, "parents and coaches have to take an active role in keeping track of pitches thrown; many of these kids play on several teams and one coach doesn't know what the other is doing."
Mount Vernon update: According to The Journal News earlier this week, the first 40 days of crisis-mode fundrasing in the Mount Vernon school district netted about $100,000, only one-third the amount needed by the end of this week to guarantee that there will be a fall sports season.
Football coach Ric Wright told the paper donations to the "Save Our Sports" campaign have steadily grown recently, but so has the workload for boosters and supporters.
"I'm split-brain right now," he told the paper. "I missed a workout the other day because I had to be at a big fundraising event. Right now, I'm trying to balance the two and really concentrate on these kids."
Donations can made by sending a check to "The Mount Vernon Educational Foundation Inc.," P.O. Box 476 Fleetwood Station, Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 10552. Write "sports" in memo section of the check.
Football scrimmages update: I normally go to football scrimmages more to socialize than to actually watch too much of what takes place on the field, but I'd happily
