Quote:
Originally Posted by dash_riprock
Now that is just silly. And if the wind was from behind the hitter, the holes would slow the bat down (equally silly).
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Dash:
It is obvious that you are not learned in Fluid Mechanics. It really does not have anything to do with wind but with the movement of the bat through the air.
The bat has as given cross-section (for a given cross-section there is a drag coefficient; the larger the cross-section the high the drag coefficient, and the idea is to reduce the drag coeffecient) that creates drag as the bat moves through the air. As the bat moves through the air, the air is separated and flows over the bat as the air gets to the back of the bat it comes together. The faster the bat moves through the air, the greater the chance of turbulence being created behind the bat which causes as differential in air pressure between the front of the bat and the rear of the bat; the air pressure is less in the rear of the bat than in the front of the bat thereby decreasing bat speed through the air.
The idea is to make the flow over the bat as laminar (less turbulent) as possible. By making it possible for air to flow throw the cross-section of the bat decreases the turbulence behind the bat there by increasing bat speed through the air. The greater the velocity of the bat at the moment it contacts the ball the great the momentum of the ball as it leaves the bat (conservation of momentum is one of the factors how far a ball travels).
The mass of the bat is much greater that the mass of the ball and it only takes a small increase in a bat's velocity to greatly effect the amount of momentum transfered from the bat to the ball.
MTD, Sr.
P.S. Thanks to Google I found this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj4SUUn8kVs
The important part is 20 seconds into the video.