Eminence-Based Medicine versus Evidence-Based Medicine: It's Okay for 12-Year-Old Pitchers to Throw Curveballs; It's the Pitch Count that Matters

Abstract

Working from a prior investigation, we sought to determine the validity of the claim: “It's okay for 12-year-old pitchers to throw curveballs; it's the pitch count that matters.” Our previous expert opinion survey demonstrated that this statement was most probably false. The purpose of this report was to investigate the validity of this statement, and to determine if our sports medicine experts “got it right.” Using the most current sports medicine literature, this statement was critically examined so that an evidence-based opinion could be given and compared with the results of our prior study.

Keywords:

• pitching
• curveball
• pitch count
• little league elbow
• little league shoulder