News item: The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the state’s governing body for high school athletics, will implement a pitch-count rule for the 2017 high school baseball season.

The rule, per Jim Bransfield’s recent report in the Middletown Press, will work on a sliding scale, requiring days of rest in proportion to pitches thrown. Fred Balsamo, the state baseball tournament director, said the baseball committee has yet to identify specific pitch count numbers, but said they’d all be related to days of rest. It is likely, for example, that 100 pitches would require four or five days’ rest.

The residual moral outrage from state baseball coaches has been amusing. Most of them can’t stand it. I like it. Here’s why: The rule’s creation and application exist to protect kids. That’s never a bad thing. And while I’m always leery of legislation forthcoming from idealistic administrators, the hearts of the CIAC baseball committee are in the right place.

Excessive pitch counts and insufficient rest are a pox on amateur baseball. This is nothing new. To think we used to giggle at former New London American Legion coach Jim O’Neill, when he said there are four reasons coaches abuse the arms of their young pitchers:

He’s a big, strong kid.

He said he felt fine.

We didn’t have anyone else.

We really needed the game.

This is called truth in sarcasm. Mad props and bon mots to the CIAC for finally giving coaches the official Whoa, Nellie.

Quibble all you want about more legislation. There’s no denying this rule is an indictment of high school baseball coaches in Connecticut. The CIAC’s message is clearer than a bottle of Aquafina: We don’t trust you.

I believe there’s enough evidence over the last 30 years — even before — to justify the CIAC’s actions.

Among the complaints from coaches I’ve seen and heard in recent days:

• Pitch count rules solve nothing, especially if the pitcher has proper mechanics and conditions himself properly.

• All kids develop differently. Some are sore after 20 pitches, some after 100.

• Youth leagues are the biggest offenders, especially when a kid pitches a Babe Ruth game on a Friday and an AAU game on a Saturday.

• Pitch counts are too subjective because pitching has too many variables: physical makeup, strength, mechanics and mental toughness.

The aforementioned can be loosely translated into the following: blah, blah, blah, blah.

I’m tired of seeing high school kids start a game on Monday … and then Friday of the same week. That’s not enough rest, even if he is a big, strong kid. Even if he said he felt fine. Even if you didn’t have anyone else. Even if you really needed the game. Here’s a novel concept: Develop a pitching staff, rather than relying on three or four kids. It’s called a “pitching rotation” for a reason.

Seems to me that, you know, if David Price starts Monday, he’s not coming back until Saturday, in the interest of protecting his arm. If such precautions apply to professionals, why would they not apply to kids, too, whose arms and bodies aren’t nearly as developed?

I’m tired of seeing kids start a game on a Wednesday … and then resume duties as the catcher on Friday. What, the arm didn’t get enough of a workout on Wednesday? You don’t have another catcher? You can’t develop one? It’s a ridiculous abuse of the arm. Yet it happens. Often.

The medical community, most notably renowned surgeon Dr. James Andrews, has concerns about the growing number of arm injuries for young pitchers. That ought to be enough for every league short of T-ball to ponder their procedures.

And please: We don’t need to hear from the “back when I was in school” crowd here, either. We get it: You threw both ends of a doubleheader, ran a marathon, wrestled alligators, killed grizzly bears on your way to school and then broke for lunch. Congrats. Now get lost. This is about new evidence and changing circumstances.

Sad it’s come to this. But the baseball committee and the CIAC got this one right.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro. Twitter: @BCgenius