The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports Audiobook (Free)

Yahoo’s lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable product in sports-the pitching arm-and how its vulnerability to damage is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.

Every year, Major League Baseball spends more than $1.5 billion on pitchers-five times a lot more than the salary of every NFL quarterback combined. Pitchers will be the game’s lifeblood. Their import is certainly exceeded only by their fragility. One small band of tissue in the elbow, the ulnar about The Arm: In the Billion-Dollar Secret of the Most Valuable Product in Sports collateral ligament, is certainly snapping at unprecedented rates, leaving current big group players vulnerable and the arriving generation of baseball-playing children dreading the three scariest words in the sport: Tommy John medical procedures.

Jeff Passan traveled the world for three years to explore in-depth the past, present, and future from the arm, and exactly how its evolution remaining baseball struggling to wrangle its Tommy John surgery epidemic. He examined what compelled the Chicago Cubs to invest $155 million using one arm. He snagged a uncommon interview with Sandy Koufax, whose career was cut short by damage at thirty, and frequented Japan to comprehend how another baseball-mad country treats its prized hands. And he implemented two major little league pitchers, Daniel Hudson and Todd Coffey, throughout their results from Tommy John medical procedures. He exposes the way the football establishment long disregarded the rise in arm accidental injuries and reveals how misplaced bonuses across the sport stifle potential adjustments.

Injuries to the UCL begin as soon as Little League. With out a drastic cultural shift, baseball will continue steadily to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year to broken pitchers, and another generation of children will suffer the same issues that vex current players. Informative and hard-hitting, The Arm is essential reading for everyone who loves the game, wants to keep their children healthful, or relishes a look into how a huge, complex institution can fail so spectacularly.