What I’ve Learned From Baseball – and What I Hope to Bring to Baseball in Ireland
Assessing and managing injuries in baseball depends on context. The demands of the sport, the player’s level of play, their schedule, goals, and stage of development all influence what appropriate rehabilitation looks like. After working across professional, national-development, and community baseball, I want to bring that perspective to Baseball Ireland so that athlete health becomes part of the entire player pathway, from youth and recreational players through to the national team. I aim to help players stay healthy and remain in the game as they develop.
The same injury can require very different decisions depending on who the athlete is, what they are trying to return to, and what their schedule looks like. Ultimately, across all levels of play, the questions are similar: can the player continue to play, do they need a day or two off, or does the injury require more time away? During my internship with the Toronto Blue Jays, we had these discussions daily for everything ranging from soreness and bruises to muscle strains and ligament sprains. At the professional level, it is very difficult to fully recover when you play almost every day for 162 games, even with all of the fancy gadgets and tools. Sometimes injury management was about helping the player get through to the next game, but other times it was about getting the player completely healthy in the long run. The thought process was the same, but working with Baseball Canada’s Junior National Team was a very different situation, as it was just me, my hands, and some tape caring for 30 of the best under-18 players in the country. I took a more conservative approach and tried to balance today’s participation without sacrificing tomorrow’s athlete. Usually, the approach involved a short-term sacrifice for long-term gain, as I would think ahead to the next trip or the player’s upcoming season, while still trying to keep them as involved as possible over the 12-day trip. At the community level though, there’s a little more room to breathe and the focus shifts from day-to-day management to aiming for full recovery, understanding of the injury, and returning to the sport they enjoy with enough capacity to keep doing it.
If the decision tree remains similar, but the context changes between levels, the ultimate question becomes, “What does this player need to be able to tolerate when they return?” Baseball has specific demands, and injury assessment and rehabilitation need to consider those demands and prepare the player for them. Pitching, hitting, throwing, fielding, and sprinting are explosive and repetitive in baseball. While the intensity of these demands may not be the same across levels, all baseball players in Ireland experience these demands, and everyone deserves access to injury rehabilitation that reflects the baseball they play.
Ireland’s baseball community is developing across a wide range of ages and levels, creating an opportunity to build athlete health into that pathway from the ground up. It’s never fun sitting on the sidelines due to an injury, and if you keep getting hurt in a sport, you’re probably not going to continue with it. If we want kids to stay in baseball long enough to become tomorrow’s competitive players, we need to help them stay healthy today. As players progress, the demands change, and so does the support they need. For younger players, that may mean helping players, parents, and coaches recognize potential injuries and understand when to seek help. As players move into more competitive environments, rehabilitation needs to reflect increasing training and competition demands. At the highest levels, injury management can become about balancing recovery with the need to remain available for competition.
My role with Baseball Ireland is to be another piece of support for players that understands the specific demands of baseball. My goal isn’t simply to help players get back from their injuries. It’s to help them understand how the demands of baseball contribute to injury, build the capacity to tolerate those demands, and stay in the game of baseball as they develop.
