Injuries are an inevitable part of life and are caused for many different reasons. There are injuries in every realm from work to play to sports. Specifically, injuries that occur in sporting related incidences are a common and substantial part of the game. With injuries ranging from practice to the game field athletes are always putting their bodies on the line. Within the confines of baseball and softball, they both share common ground on the types of injuries that occur. Shoulder injuries in general affect numerous players in both sports. But, pitchers are most prone to injury due to the great amount of stress placed on the shoulder area because of the repetitiveness of pitching. Baseball and softball pitching require different techniques. These techniques acquire different levels of stress and injury for the pitchers. Baseball pitching is over handed, while softball pitching is underhanded or windmill style. With these two contrasting styles of pitching, there are different types of injuries and reasons for them occurring.
Through the research found on this topic most of the articles concluded the same facts and results. They found that the underhanded motion of a softball player's pitch places less strain on the shoulder and elbow joints. Thus, concluding that a softball pitcher can last longer than a baseball pitcher because of the amount of strain delivered when pitching. Research has shown that baseball injuries while throwing is at 20.4% where as softball is only 11.0%. Other injuries include forearms, wrists or hands at 25.1% for baseball and 24.2% for softball. They obtained this information mainly through field study and logging and comparing injuries against each other. .
I plan to research this idea two different ways. My first act of research is going to be a questionnaire to be filled out by pitchers of both sports and of all ages. After this I plan to conduct a survey to get any extra information that could be useful.