Aluminum bats
 

USA Today had a quick blurb about New York City Council taking up a bill today that would make it illegal to use aluminum bats in HS games.

Thoughts?

I don't care. That's a coach's worry, not mine.



This is an eteamz issue that really doesn't belong here.

aluminum bats will never be banned from youth sports because of one reason- COST

It's not feasable for a team to generate enough money to use wood bats because of the bats breaking so frequently.

A local coach reports that his players spend less on bats each year since they switched to wood. The key was to teach them how to hit with wood.

Another factor was that the players were caught up in the "keeping up with the Jones' trap and buying the new and improved metal bat each year at over $300. Now each kid buys three wood bats at $30 to $50 a pop.

Found the story on ESPN
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hig...ory?id=2798652

The ordinance was enacted. Now you're umpiring a varsity game in NYC and a player comes to bat with hir own (presumably personal property) metal bat. The other team's captain objects. The league in which the game is being contested has no rule against metal bats. What do you do? Tell the other team's captain to call a cop, because it's not in your jurisdiction?

I can practically guarantee the situation above will arise, unless every HS circuit playing games within NYC adopts a rule conforming to the ordinance. It's not like pro boxing, where state commissions make & enforce both the laws and the rules.

Robert

Things may have changed since I lived in NY, but back then it was one of the cities in the country in which the school board came under the city governments jurisdiction. Thus the city could enact legislation that would affect all the schools.

The NYC Bd. of Ed. is quasi-autonomous, hard to figure out who has authority over it, but NYC ordinances can't direct them to do anything. But the city does have jurisdiction over the city, so being on school grounds doesn't get you out of the municipal jurisdiction.

But so what? What if the game is being contested between private schools? It's still in NYC, and AIUI the ordinance did not exempt private schools.

Robert

A clarification:

Just got off the phone. The NYC board of ed has been renamed the NYC department of education. The mayor continues to appoint its leadership. According to a close friend who works within the system, there is constant "interference" from the city, which indeed can and has passed ordinances to regulate the department.

He believes the goal of the bat legislation was to bring the schools into line. He predicts no attempt will be made to force organizations outside of their control to abide by it.

In most areas school districts are governmental entities within themselves and have their own taxing district and an independently elected board which hires a superintendent.

But NYC is not alone. I believe LA, Philly and Seattle are similar.

I believe the vast majority of bats used by youth players are paid for by their parents, and given the price of aluminum bats these days they might come out better with wood.

To regulate the dept.? Or to regulate the schools directly? My understanding is that they can't make the dept. do anything, but they can simply go around the dept., "interfering" by making their own ordinances re school operations. That is, they have concurrent jurisdiction over schools.

Does the NYC chancellor now serve at the pleasure of the mayor? ISTR Giuliani as having wanted that.

Does the ordinance then only require that public high schools in the city supply only wood bats? Or is it an ordinance forbidding metal bats to be used in any HS in the city, including private schools? Or something in between?

NY's education law is really complicated. From some time in the 1960s to some time in the 1990s, in addition to the appointed citywide board (which goes back to the 19th C.) NYC had community school bds. that were elected (by a different voting system than used in most of the state) but did not have taxing power.

Because NY got into this game so early, the public schools are governed by an enormous range of boards of different sizes, and over all of them are the Regents, who also have jurisdiction over the state's colleges plus a variety of matters that are tangentially related to education by virtue of being professions of educated people. This results in such things as pharmacies being under the concurrent jurisdiction of the state's education and health depts.

Robert

Did you see this
 

Latest info on the issue that I can find as of Jan. 2007.

http://www.littleleague.org/media/US...all_012507.asp