Preseason shoulder strength measurements in professional baseball pitchers: identifying players at risk for injury.

Background: The ability to identify pitchers at risk for injury could be valuable to a professional baseball organization. To our knowledge, there have been no prior studies examining the predictive value of preseason strength measurements.

Hypothesis: Preseason weakness of shoulder external rotators is associated with increased risk of in-season throwing-related injury in professional baseball pitchers.

Effort thrombosis presenting as pulmonary embolism in a professional baseball pitcher.

Context: Effort thrombosis, or Paget-Schroetter's syndrome, is a rare subset of thoracic outlet syndrome in which deep venous thrombosis of the upper extremity occurs as the result of repetitive overhead motion. It is occasionally associated with pulmonary embolism. This case of effort thrombosis and pulmonary embolus was in a 25-year-old major league professional baseball pitcher, in which the only presenting complaints involved dizziness and shortness of breath without complaints involving the upper extremity-usually, a hallmark of most cases of this condition.