Throwing ( don't over do it !!! )

Let's take a leap and say you own the A's and you have an immensely valuable property in Barry Zito. From strictly a business standpoint, do you want him to do that? Forget whether or not it is or isn't harmful, do you really want him to touch a baseball when he doesn't have to?

If the answer is that you don't care, either you are a lousy businessman, or have confidence that you have competent underlings like doctors, trainers and coaches watching him like a hawk!

There is no way anyone on the face of this planet can throw a baseball 100+ times in a game and have their arm has completely recovered in 24 hours.

The one ML pitching coach I know personally, tells me the Dodgers would fine a pitcher who did that. They put a clause in every pitcher's contract forbidding it and enforced it without mercy, including a few times on Sandy Koufax.

But, even if it wasn't necessarily harmful, we're talking about a grown man in the ML, with access the very best medical people in the world, not some 11 year old who's dad's heath plan won't pick up a visit to a sports medicine specialist for a sore arm.

Don't try to equate kids with ML players or coach Rubberarm Ag who can throw 200 pitches a day 2 or 3 times a week. An adult knows, or at least should know the difference between just tossing the ball around and throwing the day after he pitched a game. A kid probably doesn't have that capacity and shouldn't be trusted to do that.

Of course that's only my opinion, but in the last few years I've had the opportunity to hang around a couple of ML pitchers, a few minor league pitchers, and several very good D1 pitchers, one of whom went to the same school Zito went to, and I'll tell you what they all tell me about the day after pitching a game. DON"T TOUCH A BALL! Jog, exercise, stretch, go over the last game, plan for the next game, but don't pick up a ball.