This is an interesting topic. What's happened to bats over the years is that loaded the weight toward the business end and taken it from the handle making the bats more likely to shatter. We took a tour of the Louisville Bat Factory last year and it's amazing how much thicker the bat handles were not even 20 years ago versus today.
What's more interesting is that there is another bat technology out there called Radial bats. They are constructed from 12 wedges pressed together in a block then lathed like a traditional bat. They are supposedly guaranteed not to shatter if they break. The owner/inventor has been petitioning MLB to test/approve his design but so far no luck.
Haven't a couple of umpires been cut/hit with broken bats recently (i.e., within the last couple of years)?
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