Saying no to Curveballs

So there we were this past weekend, my son Holden and I playing catch with a baseball outside the tent next to a lake on his first ever camping trip. After about 10 minutes, I decided to mess with him so I threw him a curveball — and he missed catching it as it broke away from his glove.  He had a puzzled look on his face when he asked me “What was that?” I laughed as I told him it was a curveball.

Of course, he immediately wanted to know how to throw one and I immediately began the internal debate on whether or not I should show him how.  I know, I know…I’ve heard all the warnings. You’re not supposed to teach your kids how to throw a curveball or slider or any breaking pitches in Little League. They are too young, their arms, elbows, tendons, and ligaments are still developing, etc.  I get all of that. But I figured, what the heck, his baseball season is over and he won’t be playing again until next spring so it’s not like he’s going to be practicing it.  Besides, at 10 years old, I seriously doubted he could throw one anyways.

So I gave him a quick lesson. My wife Kari, always quick with the camera, captured the moment of me showing him how to grip it.

He tried to throw it. Once. It was nowhere close to being a curveball and came nowhere close to me. Then he went back to just throwing normally.  I know my son and I knew I had nothing to really worry about. That’s the only reason I bothered to give him the 30-second lesson: I knew it wouldn’t stick.

I’m probably going to coach his team next year and I’m going to make sure that none of the kids are throwing curveballs (like the kid we saw in his end-of-the-season tournament a few weeks ago). Did we throw curveballs as kids? You bet we did. I was throwing curves, sliders, sinkers, split-fingered fastballs, you name it.  So were many of my friends. And we lived to tell about it. But we also did a lot of other stupid things that I hope my son never does (although he’ll probably do his fair share like most kids). The point is that if you show your Little Leaguer anything, it should be how to throw a changeup.  And only do that after working extensively on location. Command and changing speeds are far more important. Even pitchers without huge fastballs can get by with location and changeups.

My son will have time to learn curveballs when he gets older, much older. I won’t really show him how until he’s maybe in high school…by which time his friends will have already probably shown him.  I’m not stupid.  I’ll be keeping an eye out for those breaking pitches next season and I’ll put a quick end to them if I see them being thrown.

I know, that’s no fun. But it’s the right thing to do.