Mark Prior’s Shoulder Surgery: Did The Towel Drill And “Scap Loading” Ruin His Career?
by Dick Mills on April 24, 2007 Scapula loading, or “scap load” as popular instructors refer to it, as a way to improve pitching velocity, may go down as the most irresponsible piece of coaching advice since weighted baseballs. Then we have the famous towel drill, designed to help a pitcher get more arm extension so he is closer to the plate at ball release. This too does not work as proposed and is far from a valuable tool for improving pitching mechanics. And yet, Mark Prior has been using both of these techniques to draw him closer and closer to shoulder surgery over the past four years. Now he will finally go under the knife of Dr. James Andrews, the noted orthopedic from Birmingham. This is the same Mark Prior who supposedly had perfect mechanics after his first full season in the major leagues when he went 18-6 during 2003. Since then he has been on the disabled list 8 times with elbow, shoulder, and leg injuries. I feel badly for Mark Prior. His mechanics have been suspect from
