Pitch counts coming to PSAL baseball programs

The Department of Education’s Public School Athletic League (PSAL) recently announced that they will be enforcing a pitch count this spring for their Junior Varsity and Varsity Baseball programs. The new pitch count will impact hundreds of athletes.
“Baseball is a popular sport in our schools and we want to make sure our student athletes are playing to the best of their ability without getting serious long-term injuries and the limit on pitch counts aims to do just that,” said PSAL executive director Donald Douglas.
There are 138 PSAL varsity baseball teams with 2,423 students playing 1,102 games last season. For junior varsity, there are 40 teams with 839 students playing 221 games last season.
The new pitch limit per game for Varsity teams is now 105 pitches thrown. If a hurler throws more than 91 pitches in a single game, the player will be required to rest four consecutive games.
If the pitcher throws between 76 and 90 pitches, the required rest would be three consecutive days. If the pitcher throws 51-75 pitches in the game, a coach would be required to rest their player two days. If the pitcher throws between 26 and 50 pitches the coach would only have to rest their player one day.
The Junior Varsity’s the limit is 90. The pitch counts are as follows — more than 81 pitches would require four days rest, 61-80 would require a three day rest, 41-60 would require a two day rest and 20-40 pitches a game would require one day rest.
With this new program, the PSAL becomes one of the country’s first high school baseball leagues to institute a pitch count. The decision to institute a pitch count came after PSAL coaches, the city’s Office of School Health and top physicians monitored pitch counts and the affect on young arms.
PSAL partnered with Bellevue Hospital and New York University (NYU) Hospital to form Partners in Youth, which is an organization specifically geared toward protecting young athletes.
“Partners for Youth, a unique partnership among PSAL, Bellevue Hospital Center and the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases Department of Orthopedics, is proud to have been part of the team that developed and implemented a Pitch Count Program to protect the baseball players of the New York City public high schools,” said, Dr. Noel Testa, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at NYU.
Coaches will have full responsibility for implementing the new rule. PSAL hopes that with the new pitch count they can help the student athlete not only in the present, but also in the future.
“Sports injuries in high school can affect a student throughout his adulthood and that is why it is important for coaches and the PSAL to monitor their players,” said Dr. Roger Platt, director of the Office of School Health.