Yahoo’s lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports—the pitching arm—and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors. Jeff Passan. And he tackled a question that is troubling baseball at every level, the increasing number of pitchers' arm injuries, so it was worth attempting. One has to conclude that pitching major-league baseball is hazardous to one's health. He exposes how the baseball establishment long ignored the rise in arm injuries and reveals how misplaced incentives across the sport stifle potential changes. Let's start with the positives, this book is well-reported, factual, objective and quite well-written. Previous page of related Sponsored Products. Without a drastic cultural shift, baseball will continue to lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually to damaged pitchers, and another generation of children will suffer the same problems that vex current players. Jeff Passan wrote The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports, which can be purchased at a lower price at ThriftBooks.com. Having the stories of two different pitchers dealing with the aftermath of Tommy John put a human face on the problem. Injuries to the UCL start as early as Little League. It is a well written view with lots of insight. Passan has proven his bon fides with this book. I own almost 100 baseball books and some times I wonder if there is anything left that will surprise me and that I will really get into while reading well this book is just that book!! Very detailed and informative book. Great read! Jeff Passan traveled the world for three years to explore in-depth the past, present, and future of the arm, and how its evolution left baseball struggling to wrangle its Tommy John surgery epidemic. Unable to add item to List. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Plus, enjoy 10% off your next online purchase over $50. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2019. © 2020  Couldn’t put it down . He got the inside story of how the Chicago Cubs decided to spend $155 million on one arm—an arm that helped them win their first World Series in 108 years. The best baseball book of the year… Jeff Passan spent several years in clubhouses and operating rooms to report The Arm. It is informative, entertaining, honest and extremely well written. He snagged a rare interview with Sandy Koufax, whose career was cut short by injury at thirty, and visited Japan to understand how another baseball-mad country treats its prized arms. My son plays in a few PG events a year and if we allowed him to be over-used or exploited that's on us, not the company that sponsors events. Arm care is a significant issue for pitchers at every stage of development. Please enable JavaScript before proceeding: Sign up to get exclusive offers, the best in books & more.Plus, enjoy 10% off your next online purchase over $50.†. Discount prices on books by Jeff Passan, including titles like The Shift. Why do some pitchers go for decades without major injury while others seem to be as fragile as Nabatean glass? Top subscription boxes – right to your door, Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are…, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Something went wrong. It's a thinking game. Jeff Passan digs deeply into the question of why pitchers' arms fail them so often. If your postal code might be further than 25kms from a store, try entering a city name instead. He exposed the broken youth system that spits out more injured pitchers than ever. And he followed two major league pitchers as they returned from Tommy John surgery, the revolutionary procedure named for the former All-Star who first underwent it more than forty years ago. Passan never makes the determination. Please try again. I highly recommend the book though. Please try your request again later. Every year, Major League…, With its three-hour-long contests, 162-game seasons, and countless measurable variables, baseball is a sport which lends itself to self-reflection and obsessive analysis.