It’s the stuff of a kid’s dreams: You’re a lousy Little Leaguer until you break your arm and return from the injury throwing 103 mph. At age 12, you’re suddenly the closer for your hometown Chicago Cubs. This is what happens to Henry Rowengartner in Rookie of the Year. But could it happen that way in real life? According to Dr. Julia Warden, a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute: No, not even close.
In the movie, Rowengartner’s doctor tells him he has “radial fractures on his ulna” (a bone in your forearm) and “assorted rotator cartilage damage.” Warden calls the diagnosis “confusing, because of the incorrect use of anatomical terms.” The 12-year-old is then put in a cast for four months (way too long, Warden says), and his right arm is fixed at the top of the throwing position (Warden has never seen this), because, as Movie Doc puts it, “I want these bones to set correctly.” Says Warden: “I don’t even understand which bone they were trying to heal.”
When Rowengartner gets the cast off and accidentally punches his doctor in the face while trying to slowly rotate his arm, Movie Doc says that the kid’s tendons (we never find out which ones) have healed “a little tight.” That can happen if a joint is immobilized for a long time, but because tendons don’t act like springs, it wouldn’t speed up a fastball. “Realistically, it wouldn’t make him throw that hard,” Warden says, noting that muscles produce force, not tendons. “It would more likely restrict his range of motion.”
In other words, Rowengartner should have been even worse at baseball after his injury.
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Warden doesn’t like to use words like “never” or “impossible” in medicine. But she comes awfully close when assessing whether a broken arm could lead to increased fastball velocity. “I mean, you never know,” she says, laughing. “I’ll say near-impossible. Highly unlikely.”
So from a medical standpoint, Rookie of the Year is a mess. But even with all this considered, Warden sees the silver lining: “It’s a good kids’ movie, right?”
This story initially appeared in the August 2016 issue of Sportsnet magazine.