GIVE KIDS A BREAK IN SPORTS.

Byline: ERIC SONDHEIMER

Hundreds of young boys and girls tried out for youth baseball and softball teams this past weekend throughout the San Fernando Valley. There's a good chance someone suffered an injury.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 38.2 percent of the estimated 404,468 baseball-related injuries suffered in 1994 occurred in the 5-to-14 age group, more than in any other.

"Orthopedics Today" reported last October that sports-related injuries to children rose dramatically between 1990 and 1993 - up 10,000 for soccer players, 15,000 for football and 26,000 for baseball.

Training techniques designed for high school, college and professional athletes but used by children are blamed by orthopedic specialists for rising youth injuries.

"It's out of control," said James Rogers, program director for the Temple University Sports Medicine Center in Philadelphia. "It's a national problem. How do we educate the people coaching the most vulnerable?"

One of the worst training techniques trickling down to the youth ranks is the obsession with a year-round commitment to a single sport. Too many young athletes are starting to pursue just one sport 52 weeks a year while taking no time off.

The best example is baseball. March to August used to be the time young boys played Little League or Pony baseball, then moved on to other sports or rested. Now, with traveling teams, fall baseball and winter baseball, there's no break. Stress fractures showing up in the arms of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds are no longer a rarity. One 11-year-old told me the only time he hasn't practiced baseball in the past year was for a two-week period. Of course, there was also the five weeks he missed pitching because of a stress fracture in his shoulder.

"I don't think they're being trained too early," Northridge-based sports psychologist Drew Yellen said. "I think they're being trained inappropriately for their age. There's nothing wrong with teaching a kid to play baseball at age 7, but you don't teach him to throw a curve."

Not only are youths playing in three different leagues at once, but when they are not training with their regular coaches, they're receiving lessons from private instructors. It's no wonder some young athletes become burned out on sports or develop bad attitudes. They are being trained like pros instead of being treated like the kids they are.

"When you and I were kids, there were true seasons," said Dr. Richard Ferkel, a Van Nuys-based orthopedic surgeon. "You played football, stopped. You played basketball, stopped. Maybe if you didn't have a spring sport, you stopped and got caught up from injuries. Now football is a year-round sport, basketball is year-round, cross country, soccer, baseball. Young kids' bodies never get a break, never get a chance to recover from the trauma their bodies experience."

Ferkel remembers seeing a 13-year-old girls' soccer player who came in complaining of chronic foot problems. Further examination revealed she had multiple stress fractures in both feet because "she never allowed her body to rest," he said. "It's too much competition, too much running, too much everything."

Rogers provided "Orthopedics Today" with an X-ray of a 12-year-old Little League pitcher who fractured his humerus when he ignored pain warnings. "It looked like a car accident," Rogers said.

Motivating young athletes to train nonstop is the fear that others might be passing them by. Motivating parents to allow their children to play in multiple leagues is the hope they could land a college scholarship.

"Everybody is hoping their child becomes good enough to get a scholarship and that pushes parents to push their child to become better and better," Ferkel said. "Through sports, young kids should be developing a lot of self-confidence and feeling good about themselves."

The reason two- and three-sport athletes are almost extinct at the high-school level is because top athletes are concluding they need to devote all their training to one sport to receive a college scholarship. Even young children are starting to adopt a similar strategy. What happened to the theory that playing volleyball can help make someone a better basketball player and playing soccer can help develop skills for baseball?

The system of preparing young athletes for high school, college and the pros is getting out of control. Parents and coaches must remember that children aren't miniature adults. Better judgment is needed to protect child athletes from developing physical and mental problems in the teen-age years and beyond.