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predictor of future injuries among kids. Risk factors are highest for kids like Harley, whose arms are especially fragile at ten years old and, in many cases, remain so through the end of high school and beyond. Some surgeons have performed Tommy John on kids as young as thirteen years old, even as doctors at the top of the field warn against cutting still-growing arms. Children who regularly pitched with arm fatigue are thirty-six times likelier to undergo elbow or shoulder surgery, another study by Andrews and his peers at ASMI found. The same study said that kids who pitch in games more than eight months of the year need surgery five times as often. And another study, published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine , reported that children like Harrington who play travel ball are five times likelier to suffer from elbow pain.
    â€œI have this conversation with every Tommy John patient,” said Dr. Orr Limpisvasti, a surgeon at Kerlan-Jobe in Los Angeles. “Just so you know, I’m going to fix your arm so you can destroy it again. And this lightbulb goes off. Here’s what we know: Throwing is bad for your arm. You’re good at it and love doing it. And you tore your God-given UCL, probably the best one you’ll everhave by a long shot, and if we put a new one in, you’re refurbishing it so you can do the exact same thing that you did before.”
    UCL reconstruction is far from foolproof, too. The procedure involves cutting through skin and muscle, drilling into bone, and tying the elbow together. It is major surgery that calls for a brutal, monotonous rehabilitation. And while the return rate is around 80 percent, a study from Jon Roegele at the Hardball Times looked at the return of every pitcher who underwent Tommy John surgery from 2000 to 2009 and found the median threw just sixty games and one hundred innings for the rest of his career. The data also showed that pitchers on fourteen-to-sixteen- and seventeen-to-twenty-month timetables had performed better than those who rushed back, an indictment against a baseball culture intent on returning pitchers in a year.
    There is nothing glamorous about Tommy John surgery. The urban legend of doctors performing it pre-emptively and prophylactically is unfounded. Forget another myth, too: the problem stems from kids throwing curveballs too young. Another ASMI study showed that curveballs cause less strain on the arm than the simple, humble fastball, whose greater velocity taxes pitchers more. In 2003, the average fastball in the major leagues didn’t crack 90 miles per hour. Today, it’s over 92, jumping annually for eight consecutive years and placing not just a physical burden on every kid who dreams of being a big leaguer but also a mental one: throw hard or your chances are grim.
    So they travel like Harley Harrington, using pitch-all-you-want tournaments to ready themselves for the grind of their teenage years, when scouts will converge on showcase events to see kids who have been reared to do everything bigger, faster, harder.
    â€œTravel baseball is completely different than it was twenty years ago,” said Paul DePodesta, now the chief strategy officer for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns after spending two decades in baseball front offices. “With all the showcases and these guys pitching, it’s not just when they’re seventeen. It’s when they’re fourteenand fifteen.” DePodesta has four kids, three boys. His second son, Evan, played on an all-star team that was invited to a regional tournament in 2014. He got to stay in a hotel and wanted to keep doing that with a travel team. Sure, his dad said, except he might have to give up football and soccer and basketball.
    â€œI don’t think I’m ready to choose,” Evan said.
    â€œWell, you shouldn’t,” DePodesta said, “because you’re six.”
    T HE ULNAR COLLATERAL LIGAMENT IS a finicky little bastard, ill-equipped to