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With the manufacturers trying as hard as they can to get around the rules, I'm sure NFHS has been puzzling a way to maintain the safety and fairness of play. What about this possible method:
1) NFHS performs checks of sample equipment, and allows the manufacturer to put a stamp on a product line that conforms to the standard.
2) NFHS publishes a list of what product lines are allowed, and updates it periodically on their website, accessible to the public.
3) If a manufacturer is found to be abusing the rules with a product line, even with only one size or weight model, the entire product line is removed from the approved list until the end of the season. Any bats manufactured after notification must not have the approval stamp.
4) Retailers who sell bats for NFHS baseball or softball voluntarily submit a distribution list for notification of bat repeals.
5) NFHS uses that distribution list to notify retailers of a bat repeal. Since manufacturers marketed those bats for NFHS athletics, the bats cannot be sold.
6) Retailers return unsold bats or returned bats in good condition to the manufacturers, recouping some of their funds--retailers will still likely incur a loss, but this will be because of malfeasance of the manufacturer.
I think it's plain whom I lay the blame for illegal bats. The requirements for a legal bat are not difficult to understand for a properly trained engineer.
When a manufacturer succumbs to temptations of marketability by selling an athlete a cheater's implement, he has enticed the athlete to cheat, and is just as guilty as the cheater.
If an illegal bat causes an injury to an athlete due to its "enhanced" performance, then the manufacturer, through his intentional neglect, has caused a battery to be committed. The players all assume an amount of risk based on the rules of the game and the rules NFHS sets forth regarding legal equipment. By promoting or even duping persons into the use of illegal equipment, the manufacturer is introducing an excessive risk beyond that prescribed in the rules.* I cannot abide such an act.
*I work as a Safety Engineer, I define policy for safe conduct of a set of very hazardous activities on a daily basis. Little irritates me more than people who disregard the rules put in place specifically to keep them above room temperature.
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