PLAY IT SAFE: SUMMER SPORTS CAN MEAN SERIOUS INJURY

Capaha pitcher Richie Phillips practiced his throwing at Capaha Park to get ready for the season opener tonight.

Richie Phillips tossed a weighted medicine ball at a rebounder to work his shoulder muscles. Phillips, who plays for the McDowell Ford Capahas, is recovering from a torn rotator cuff muscle.

Last year when Richie Phillips decided to have surgery on his right shoulder, it wasn't to play big league baseball. It was just to play baseball again.

Phillips, who is 28, pitches for the McDowell Ford Capahas semi-professional baseball team.

"I didn't get my shoulder rebuilt to go to the big leagues," he said. "I got it rebuilt just to play."

Last year was a difficult one for the McClure, Ill., native. He could watch only two or three of the Capahas' games.

"It was difficult to be there," he said, because he couldn't pitch. Surgery on his rotator cuff on June 6 had wiped out his season.

From baseball and softball leagues to soccer camps and swim teams, thousands of athletes will participate in summer sports.

Along with summer sports come sports injuries.

During the summer, Dr. Charlie Pancoast, emergency room doctor at St. Francis Medical Center, said his staff sees between 7,500 and 8,000 patients. About 10 to 20 percent of the patients have injuries from sports or summer activities, which amounts to 750 to 1,500 patients.

At Southeast Hospital, Pat Pennington, emergency services manager, put the patients with sports-related injuries at 5 percent. About 100 patients a day visit the emergency room.

It's not a majority of the injuries the hospital sees in the summer, she said.

Pancoast said that while injuries like sprains, broken bones, dislocations and ligament tears are not life-threatening they have an impact on the athlete's life.

Many of these injuries require a person to be off work or need rehabilitation.

Phillips knows about the latter. He has spent a year with Gerry Salter and Salter's physical therapy staff at St. Francis' Center for Health and Rehabilitation.

Within a week after surgery, Phillips began therapy; by the second week, he was throwing a tennis ball.

Along with his physical therapy, Phillips worked out on his own, doing stretching exercises and running. He thinks that helped speed his overall recovery.

While a rotator cuff injury is associated with a summer sport, medical people think dealing with summer heat and humidity causes more problems.

Heat exhaustion is one of the most common concerns because of the high humidity, Salter says.

Pancoast said his staff attends to between 20 and 40 cases of heat exhaustion a summer. Heat exhaustion becomes life-threatening when it becomes heat stroke. One or two cases of heat stroke are brought to St. Francis every year.

Pennington offers these tips to prevent heat exhaustion: Wear light clothes, drink lots of fluids, don't overexert oneself, stay inside during the hottest part of the day.

To emphasize the need for fluids to avoid heat exhaustion, Lance McNamara, head athletic trainer at Southeast Missouri State University, said the university's football team goes through 80 to 100 gallons of water a practice during the August workouts.

It is also important to acclimate the body to the heat and humidity.

Salter said it takes about two weeks to become acclimated to Missouri's summer temperature and humidity.

Sunburn is another common malady that can be prevented. Doctors and nurses advocate using a strong sunscreen, wearing a hat and using common sense.

As a pitcher, Phillips has played baseball most of his life. He pitched for Shawnee High School, Shawnee Community College and Southeast in 1994. He had a 7-2 record that year.

With the Capahas, his record is 48-6, which included a stretch of 35 straight wins from the 1992 season into the 1994 season.

But the 6-4, 200-pound Phillips knew something was wrong when he woke up one day at the end of the 1995 baseball season and couldn't feel his hand.

He had spent the 1995 season playing with the St. Louis semipro team, O.B. Clark. He didn't lose a game that year and beat the Capahas twice.

In 1996 with the Capahas, every time he pitched his shoulder hurt, and last year, when he practiced he still had the pain. That's when he decided to have the surgery.

Besides heat-related injuries, medical personnel see overuse-related injuries.

Salter cited three factors in preventing injuries: nutrition, hydration and flexibility.

The rule of thumb for knowing if there is an injury is to listen to your body, Salter said.

If a joint pain lasts for two weeks or longer, have it checked out, he said. If the pain prevents you from doing the sport, get it checked, or if you have pain while doing the sport, get it checked.

If your body aches, it's telling you something, McNamara said.

Salter and St. Francis have established a free sports clinic for amateur athletes. The clinic is open six days a week.

McNamara recommends these steps to help prevent injuries in summer sports:

-- Athletes should get a physical or have a physical assessment before the season.

-- Athletes should do some pre-exercise testing.

-- Athletes should practice the skills of the sports -- pitchers should throw a baseball, etc.

-- Athletes should work on skills progressively -- building up strength and ability rather than starting out at full-force.

It's been a year since Phillips started rehabilitation, and he says he's throwing "wide open" and feels like he's throwing as well as before the operation.

Phillips, who throws a fastball, curve, slider and changeup, said he had a little fear in throwing his slider and curve ball after the surgery.

That fear out of the way, he's ready to "play ball."