On Monday in Augusta, Windham’s American Legion baseball team came out of the loser’s bracket to win the double-elimination state tournament with a 9-1 win over Westbrook. The team now moves on to the Northeast Regional tournament, an eight-team, double-elimination tournament that starts Thursday.

For the team’s high-school-aged players, that leaves little time to prepare for the fall sports season, which gets under way Monday, Aug. 18. For those athletes, it will mark a long, almost uninterrupted string of games. Windham’s high school baseball team played almost 20 games this spring, followed by another 20-plus in the Legion season. The same is true for Westbrook, whose high school team played 20 games in the spring on the way to the state title, and another 22 in Legion.

These busy sports schedules are far from uncommon. In fact, more often than not, they are the rule, from youth leagues up through high school. Sports no longer stick to their pre-assigned seasons. Kids play baseball throughout the year – school teams, travel teams, all-stars, even indoor leagues – starting in middle school. Basketball is the same way. Football is still largely confined to the fall, although some high school teams hold players-only practices in the summer, with conditioning throughout the year.

At a time of crisis with respect to childhood obesity, it is hard to complain about kids staying active all year long. The sports sprawl has also increased opportunities for athletes who love the games and want to improve; travel and all-star teams let kids measure their skills against the best in their region and state, not just their own community. In a rural state, that is a godsend for budding athletes.

But the more games kids play, and the less time they get in between games and seasons, the more it falls on parents and coaches to watch out for the well-being of young athletes still growing into their bodies.

According to the STOP (Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention) Sports Injuries campaign, the brainchild of famed sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews, high school athletes suffer an estimated 2 million injuries each year, with 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations. Since 2000, STOP reports, the number of serious shoulder and elbow injuries among youth baseball and softball players has increased by a factor of five. Those are simply overuse injuries, brought on by young athletes making the same motions over and over again.

“We’re doing things too much – too much repetition, too much of one thing and not enough diversity,” Dr. William Levine, STOP campaign chairman, told ABC last year. “We see too much of a kid playing on their school team, a travel team, an all-star team, the same sport throughout the year.”

Levine said he is shocked at the number of 10- to 12-year-olds he treats with shoulder and elbow pain. “We never saw that 10 years ago,” he said.

There is evidence of the same trend in Maine. Recent years have featured a number of high-profile high school athletes suffering injuries rarely seen a generation ago. Ben Wessel and Chris Bernard in Scarborough and Scott Heath in Westbrook – to name just three – each blew out their throwing elbow and required Tommy John surgery, a practice revolutionized by Andrews that replaces a ligament in the elbow. Heath and Bernard have gone on to have successful college careers, with Wessel to follow after a season off, thanks to the surgery and hard work. But that kids are suffering such a severe injury with such regularity is alarming, especially as pitch counts and mandated days off have become so prevalent.

It is clear headstrong athletes have to be protected from themselves. Kids who are successful on the field are inherently open to these kinds of injuries – they have the utmost confidence in their skills and stamina, and can’t imagine anything going wrong. Parents and coaches, then, have to keep watch, in competition as well as at practice, and be aware of the cumulative effect all this fun can have.

Keeping an eye on the athlete, allowing for appropriate rest and encouraging an athlete to take part in a variety of activities can help prevent major injuries, and keep the fun and competition going all year long.

Ben Bragdon, managing editor

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