United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

My son just started playing baseball this spring. He is currently throwing with his uninjured right hand, and catching with his injured left arm. It is very difficult for him to catch with his LOBPI, but he definitely can't throw with his left. Any suggestions or encouragement from moms whose children played baseball?

Welcome Kathleen to our UBPN Family.
I Bumped up the Topic Thread "playing Sports" for you because it covers alot about several sports.

BTW, there are no dumb questions and everyone is welcome on all Forums Message Boards on our web site.
Us adults love to answer questions!

Carolyn J
LOBPI/69..+


Message was edited by: Carolyn J

my son is ROBPI and catches and throws with his uninjured arm. he catches the ball, puts the ball in injured armpit, drops his mit off uninjured arm, then throws with uninjured arm. he has played baseball for years...not the best or the fastest, but this is his method.

what was the name of the girl at camp that is the college softball player? Stephanie? we met her in 2005, great inspiration!!

hope this helps.
Crystal

I thought that I remembered reading about kids using their uninjured arm both to catch and throw. Is it complicated? At what age did your son start doing this? I'm wondering if we should continue working with him trying to catch with BPI arm, or switch to doing both with uninjured arm. Any insight?

I never played baseball on an actual team, but when I would play catch with my friends or my father- I would also do the catch and throw with my uninjured arm. What i woudl do was i would catch it put the mitt and the ball in my injured arm/hand and then throw it. i started doing it when i was young because thats just how i figured throwing and catching would work best for me.
~Mel, 20, LOBPI

my son is 10 so I guess he has done this for about 3-4 seasons...like I said, he isn't very fast, plays mostly 3rd base or outfield. I don't know how complicated it is for him, its just kind of like a natural thing now. He is a pretty good hitter.

was there something in an Outreach about baseball?

Crystal S.

Thanks so much to all of you for your replies! We're going out tomorrow to buy a glove to catch with his uninjured, right arm.

we have our 4 yr old son in karate to help him with using the injured arm[karate is one of the only sports that uses the left and right body] i have noticed a difference just in 6 weeks on him using his r arm more/ his brain was used to using the left for most things. i hope he continues with this for a while. and his master says it will help with any sport in the future.

I also play softball and catch and throw with my left uninjured side. I started playing as a third grader and my dad wanted me to catch with my ROBPI hand and so I tried that but just got so frustrated so I took my sisters glove to practice one day and realized I didnt have to be frustrated.

What I do is catch the ball with my left hand and then place my glove (ball in it) in my right elbow as I have good biceps. Then grab my ball and throw with my left hand. This works really well for me. At camp though I had a tbpi friend helping me out with the sports clinic and his method was pretty amazing! He would catch with his uninjured side toss his ball up flip the glove to the ground and catch the ball and throw it again. I was absolutely impressed! This can be done incredibly fast. And I thought I had a good method. I can do it fast enough that many times no one notices what I have done.

Those are two ideas to play with and let your little guy figure out what works best for him.
Have fun with it!!!
Hugs,
Amy 21 years old ROBPI from MN (wishing that the snow would just stop so I can go play ball!)

Just so you know that it can be done, there was a major league pitcher named Jim Abbot who played in the late 80's and early 90's, who was born without a right hand. He pitched with his left while holding his glove in his right and put his glove on his left immediately after releasing the ball. He was known as a very good fielder in addition to being a good pitcher. There are videos on youtube if you do a search for him.