A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

ONE PITCH AT A TIME: Some might call it heroic (though I question the use of the term in anything that's just a game), or at least "probably the best athletic performance ever at the University of Texas," but, c'mon: 169 pitches in one game is wrong. I don't care that UT's Austin Wood threw 12 1/3 innings of no-hit ball in relief efforts during a College World Series Game; no matter how much he may have told his coach "I'm not coming out of this game," it's coach Augie Garrido's job to preserve his player's season and his possible MLB career.

Some will admire Wood for enduring the cramping and the vomiting and the Pedialyte to put in an extraordinary athletic achievement; like Keith Law, I think it's inexcusable and unconscionable for a coach to sacrifice an unpaid player's health for the team's (and the coach's own) temporary needs. And let's not overlook opposing pitcher Mike Belfiore of Boston College, who threw 129 pitches in 9 2/3 innings of work (his previous high this season: three innings), of whom Law writes:

Belfiore is a legitimate top-two-rounds draft prospect, and in the words of one scout to whom I spoke this morning, "he's probably damaged goods" as a result of the overusage.

Belfiore came into the game with just 38.2 innings for the entire spring across 24 appearances, and like Wood, he had pitched the day before, throwing 20 pitches and allowing two runs to score in a long inning of work. If Belfiore suffers any major injury as a result of his overuse this weekend, he would stand to lose out on much or all of his potential signing bonus in next week's draft, which in his case would mean several hundred thousand dollars. It's also possible that he and Wood suffered damage that won't be discovered until after they're drafted, and their pro careers will be cut short because two college coaches decided to abdicate their responsibilities to their players because it was more important to win a single postseason game.

This is the worst pitcher abuse I've seen a Little League World Series coach made a 12-year-old throw 175 pitches in 1998. I think it's one thing for veterans like Ronnie Lott and Kellen Winslow to decide to put their bodies through hell for crucial games; that's not a choice a coach can allow a player to make before his professional career even begins. Enough with the macho.