A Call to Surgically Repaired Arms - Rice's 2003 Trio

gwayneco · Jun 19, 2006

In the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/sports/baseball/18rice.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Celebration to Surgery For Three College Pitching Stars

By PAT BORZI

One of them, at least, should be in the major leagues by now. None of them dispute that. And few scouts who saw Wade Townsend, Jeff Niemann and Philip Humber pitch Rice to the 2003 College World Series championship as sophomores would question it, either.

Tall, strapping right-handers who complemented each other in personality and style, the three combined to go 39-5 in that championship season. They were among the top eight picks in the 2004 major league draft — the first time a college had three players go in the top 10 and the first time more than two pitchers from the same staff were chosen in the first round of the same draft.

But as Rice returns to Omaha and the College World Series for the first time since that dominant season, its once-golden boys have more operations among them (three) than major league innings (zero). Humber and Townsend needed Tommy John-type reconstructive elbow surgery, and Niemann had arthroscopic shoulder surgery — all last year.

Niemann is the furthest along in his comeback. He joined Tampa Bay's Class AA farm team in Montgomery, Ala., last Friday. Humber is pitching in extended spring training for the Mets in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Townsend, who had surgery last October, threw off a mound for the first time last Wednesday at Tampa Bay's extended spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Devil Rays do not expect Townsend to pitch until next spring, though he hopes to be ready for the Arizona Fall League.

All are at a loss to explain how they ended up on operating tables within a year after signing professional contracts.

"It's weird," Humber said in a telephone interview last week. "It's hard to explain to people how that could happen. I don't know."

Mitch Lukevics, Tampa Bay's director for minor league operations, would not even guess. "You'd have to have a crystal ball for that," said Lukevics, who had a similar post with the Yankees from 1989 to 1995. "There are so many variables why things happen, it's hard to pinpoint."

Three years ago, their talent and potential were unmistakable. Niemann was the Randy Johnson-like behemoth, a 6-foot-9, 260-pounder with a 94-to-97-mile-an-hour fastball and the sharpest slider in the country. His 17-0 record tied an N.C.A.A. mark for the most victories in an unbeaten season.

The 6-3 Townsend and the 6-4 Humber mixed hard curves with low-90's fastballs. It was Humber who gave Rice the title with a complete-game five-hitter against Stanford in the deciding game of the best-of-three final.

All three starters emphatically deny that they were overworked by Rice Coach Wayne Graham, who insists that they left the Rice campus healthy.

Niemann had arthroscopic elbow surgery before the 2004 season and pitched only 80 innings because of a groin strain. But that did not stop Tampa Bay from picking him fourth over all in the draft that June, one selection after the Mets took Humber. Townsend went eighth to Baltimore.

"When we've turned over our medical records on players, and teams make them millionaires, I think we've done our job," said Graham, a former major league infielder who coached Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte at San Jacinto Junior College in Texas.

Each of the three held out before signing, and Graham hinted that might have been part of the problem.

Humber and Niemann signed six months after they were drafted. Townsend went back into the draft after failing to reach agreement with the Orioles and eventually signed with Tampa Bay as a first-round pick in 2005. He did not make his pro debut until the Arizona Fall League, more than a year after his last game with Rice.

"I didn't want them to do that," Graham, in a telephone interview from Omaha, said of their holding out. "I wished they would have signed within a month after our season ended. But once you get into it with most agents, that's the way things happen.

"I've seen pitchers get shut down when teams didn't want them to throw for three months, six months, to a year. When they come back, they're trying to impress, and they start throwing too much too quick. That's the only thing I can see."

Dr. James Andrews performed the operations on Humber and Townsend. He declined to comment on their cases, according to a spokesman for the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., where Andrews is based.

But the institute is renowned for its research on pitching injuries. A recent paper produced by the institute and published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine studied tendencies in 95 pitchers ages 14 to 20 who required shoulder or elbow surgery from Andrews, and 110 who did not.

According to Glenn Fleisig, the institute's director of research, who wrote the paper with Andrews and others, the results showed that those who often pitched through fatigue; pitched more than eight months a year; pitched in four or more showcases or tryouts in their careers; or had poor mechanics and conditioning were more likely to need surgery than those who did not.

Among those characteristics, the biggest red flag came from Townsend, who said he went through eight tryouts for scouts — one a week — in the two months before the June 2005 draft. "That's weird," Townsend said when told of the study's findings.

Humber, who joined Niemann and Townsend in the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2003, said he had multiple 10-month competitive years. Niemann said he pitched in "five or six" showcase tournaments in high school. And all said their mechanics needed work when they arrived at Rice.

"I think there's a definite common denominator with all three of us," Townsend said. "If you're a guy who throws 85 to 88 miles per hour, you're not going to hurt your elbow like Phil and I did because we put a lot of torque on the elbow."

So while the rookie Justin Verlander, chosen by the Tigers one pick ahead of Humber, is already in the majors and has won eight games, the Rice threesome keeps working to get there.

With much time and physical therapy behind him, Humber can chuckle at his bad luck.

The same day that Andrews informed Humber that he needed surgery, Humber said a technician at the institute who ran computer studies of the Mets' minor league pitchers told him he had some of the best mechanics of anyone the institute had tested.

"It was kind of ironic to hear that, but that's what they said," Humber said. "I was like, thanks."
Click to expand...

And some discussion here:

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org..._to_surgery_for_three_college_pitching_stars/

Master Baiter · Jun 19, 2006

All three starters emphatically deny that they were overworked by Rice Coach Wayne Graham, who insists that they left the Rice campus healthy.

gwayneco · Jun 19, 2006

I'm sure thet would deny that, but Graham's recent history with SP's is not encouraging. Kenny Baugh, Jon Skaggs, and the three guys from 2003 have all had arm surgery. None of those 5 guys have pitched an inning in the majors.

Perhaps all current and future Rice hurlers should put the following number on speed dial:

205-939-3000

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A Call to Surgically Repaired Arms - Rice's 2003 Trio

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