Little League, Big Dreams by Charles Euchner

Author:Charles Euchner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2006-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Royce Copeland was another California pitcher to experience arm problems after the World Series.

When Lewis got home, his arm still hurt, so he got an MRI at Tri-City Orthopedics. Dr. James Esch found a fracture and dislocation of the growth plate. Esch immobilized the shoulder and told Lewis to avoid all physical activity for three or four months.

“If I knew he had a broken shoulder, I might have had him in a soft spot [position], but not pitcher or catcher,” Marty Miller told me later.

I asked Nate Lewis if he had any regrets. “I just wish I wasn’t hurt in the U.S. championship game,” he said. “I wanted to show what I could do. I didn’t show who I was.”

Nate and Jim Lewis are both optimistic about the future. “He’s throwing gas right now, just playing catch,” says Jim. “He’ll throw twenty or thirty pitches at a time. He’s stronger than ever.”

California’s number three pitcher, Royce Copeland, also visited the doctor when he returned to California. His MRI found a light fracture in his elbow, forcing him to not pitch for a couple of months.

“Royce pitched like crap but he wouldn’t tell me anything,” Miller grumbled.

Copeland says he knew something was wrong with his arm in Williamsport. He went to the trainer regularly for treatment, but his arm hurt, off and on, the whole tournament. “It was a bummer my arm was hurt,” he told me. “It hurt every other day. I went to the trainer and had it frozen. He was fun to be with. He would joke around.”

Marty Miller acknowledges that managers often feel pressure to use pitchers with sore arms, but he thinks the problem lies in the sheer number of games some teams need to play to get to the World Series. Somehow, he says, the playing schedule needs to be reduced and all the teams in Williamsport need to play the same number of games.

“Hawaii played fourteen games to get where they were, and we played twenty. Take six games off the schedule and you have a bunch of guys who are a lot more rested. Take six games away and that’s two less games for the pitchers. Maybe Nate Lewis doesn’t hurt his shoulder. And it’s even worse with some of the other teams there. To me it’s not fair that Curaçao only had to play seven games to get there. Kalen Pimentel pitched more complete games than Curaçao played all the way. You do get burned out and tired.”

For the record, Hawaii’s Layton Aliviado dismisses that argument. “We play ball all year, like they do,” he says. “That’s not it. We just have more guys who can pitch. Almost everyone on my team can pitch. That’s the difference.”

For what it’s worth, Aliviado uses more pitchers in games than other teams. He starts his ace, Alaka’i Aglipay, as often as possible, but he often removes him after an inning. “The first inning is the most important,” Aliviado says. “Sometimes I just want Alaka’i to get us off to a good start.

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