This just arrived. Anything new?

[btdt]

"Further, the government should not be involved in deciding what kind of equipment is used to play a game. The decision should be made by the sport's own governing body."

If you know it or not, the government is involved regulating everything from the grass seed to to the fence surrounding the baseball field. Any bureaucrat or politician worth his/her salt is on constant look out for new ways or things to regulation to increase job securiety and/or protect the public from themselves because they are too stupid to know what is dangourous and what isn't. The government always knows better than parents. The government knows this because they know parents aren't smart enough to make thier own decisions, let alone decide what is safe for thier children.

Wait til they mandate foam rubber bats for the good of "the children"

[LakeErieUmp]

Foam rubber is not environmentally friendly and can harm the child's self esteem.

[Ump29]

In Canada a lot of the upper levels are going to wood again. Some of the levels using metal have limits on the length-weight differential. I like it !!

[Don Mueller]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

They're not hitting for more power; they're hitting for power more. If they could hit the sweet spot on wood as often as they do on metal they'd hit it out just as often. Don't confuse the HR stats dropping for a change in power; it's a change in how well hit the ball is.

So if a ball comes off a bat at (just to use a number) 150mph 12 times a game using metal bats or 2 times using wood bats, which bat will put F1 at more risk?

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by Don Mueller

So if a ball comes off a bat at (just to use a number) 150mph 12 times a game using metal bats or 2 times using wood bats, which bat will put F1 at more risk?

If a given speed is a reasonable risk, it is a reasonable risk any number of times. If a given speed is an unreasonable risk, it is an unreasonable risk any number of times. I have yet to see a pitcher get hit because he was tired out by dodging balls earlier in a game.

[Jim Porter]

There is a certain umpire on this forum (I won't mention his name -- he can say who he is if he wants) with whom I worked an MSBL (28+) game in Massachusetts one day a couple of years ago. He was the base umpire in, "B," and had a rocket smashed at him off a metal bat.

He had no chance to get out of the way. The best he could do was turn slightly. The ball nailed him in the wallet -- as I recall it actually broke his credit cards and driver's license in half. He also said he had a pretty good welt there for days afterwards.

That never would've happened with a wooden bat. He would've had the time to avoid the ball had it come off a wooden bat.

There's little doubt in my mind that metal is more dangerous.

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by Jim Porter

There is a certain umpire on this forum (I won't mention his name -- he can say who he is if he wants) with whom I worked an MSBL (28+) game in Massachusetts one day a couple of years ago. He was the base umpire in, "B," and had a rocket smashed at him off a metal bat.

He had no chance to get out of the way. The best he could do was turn slightly. The ball nailed him in the wallet -- as I recall it actually broke his credit cards and driver's license in half. He also said he had a pretty good welt there for days afterwards.

That never would've happened with a wooden bat. He would've had the time to avoid the ball had it come off a wooden bat.

There's little doubt in my mind that metal is more dangerous.

Why do you believe that a wooden bat couldn't have gotten the same result? Is it because a good ump got hit and you can't believe that he couldn't get out of the way of a wooden bat hit? Jim, you're a good guy, but forgive me when I trust the studies more than random examples.

[Don Mueller]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

If a given speed is a reasonable risk, it is a reasonable risk any number of times. If a given speed is an unreasonable risk, it is an unreasonable risk any number of times. I have yet to see a pitcher get hit because he was tired out by dodging balls earlier in a game.

In any game there is a certain amount of risk.
In football, if you don't wear a helmet you risk head injury, if you wear a helmet you risk head injury, the risk however is reduced.
As is the risk in baseball using wood bats vs. metal bats.

A given speed may be a reasonable risk once or twice a game using wooden bats but may be an unreasonable risk if it occurs 12 times a game with metal bats.

For example:
If an injury occurs once every thousand times a ball comes off a bat at max speed then the more times we reach max speed the more injuries. If the metal bat produces max speeds 5 to 6 more times than wood bats there will obviously be more injuries.
Apparently in NY that was unacceptable.

Frequency of the risky event certainly plays into the equation, wouldn't you agree?

[Jim Porter]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

Why do you believe that a wooden bat couldn't have gotten the same result? Is it because a good ump got hit and you can't believe that he couldn't get out of the way of a wooden bat hit? Jim, you're a good guy, but forgive me when I trust the studies more than random examples.

Oh, it's studies that you want? Why didn't you say so?

http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/b.../alumwood.html

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by Don Mueller

In any game there is a certain amount of risk.
In football, if you don't wear a helmet you risk head injury, if you wear a helmet you risk head injury, the risk however is reduced.
As is the risk in baseball using wood bats vs. metal bats.

A given speed may be a reasonable risk once or twice a game using wooden bats but may be an unreasonable risk if it occurs 12 times a game with metal bats.

For example:
If an injury occurs once every thousand times a ball comes off a bat at max speed then the more times we reach max speed the more injuries. If the metal bat produces max speeds 5 to 6 more times than wood bats there will obviously be more injuries.
Apparently in NY that was unacceptable.

Frequency of the risky event certainly plays into the equation, wouldn't you agree?

Statistical evidence doesn't bear it out. Injury rates have not skyrocketed in metal bat leagues.

[greymule]

I never hit a baseball with a metal bat. When metal softball bats first appeared (sometime around 1971 or 1972), not only did they hit the ball no farther than wood bats, they felt like a wood bat when you hit the ball. A "blindfolded" batter would not have known he was using a metal bat. (Some guys stuck with their favorite wood bat.)

How many times did I see a wood bat break and injure somebody? Zero in uncountable baseball and softball games. Today, even on some of the top SP teams, F1 and F5 wear lexan faceguards. Still, I've seen pitchers carried off in ambulances after a liner off the foot.

I quit playing SP more than 20 years ago, when there were no HR limits and it was difficult to hit a Dudley Day-Nite over a 300' fence, even with the metal bats that existed at the time. Today, guys in their 50s routinely "crush" balls" far over the same 300-foot fence whose warning track they couldn't reach at age 25.

As for the state regulating bats, I'm always wary when the government decides it's going to protect us all from ourselves. New Jersey politicians, for example, are now considering banning 50-caliber rifles as an "anti-terror" measure, on the basis of "you could shoot an airplane with this type of firearm." As if terrorists intent on shooting at airplanes couldn't procure whatever firearm they wanted, as if somebody couldn't pull over on the NJ Turnpike near Newark Airport and use a 30-06 with a scope to put a round through an aircraft windshield.

To me, the ideal situation would be if the governing bodies themselves regulated the metal bats so that they hit like wood bats. Then we'd have the best of both worlds.

Incidentally, to umpire the state Babe Ruth softball tournament last year, I had to join the BR association and learn their rules. It is interesting that as long as a bat meets the Babe Ruth specs for length, weight, circumference, and grip, it is legal. They have no list of illegal or banned bats. Therefore, the red hot Miken Ultra (with which ANYBODY can hit a ball 300 feet, or even titanium bats (banned in all other codes), are legal in Babe Ruth softball. (Also odd: all BR rules on baserunning are taken verbatim from the OBR book, except that they prohibit deliberate crashes when the fielder has the ball.)

My attorney insists that I append the following disclaimer:

NOTICE TO THE GOVERNMENT: I, greymule, do not advocate terrorism or shooting at aircraft or any other illegal target. I am, in the hopes that the great and powerful government will take appropriate action, merely calling attention to a method that terrorists might choose to employ. It is also possible that terrorists could use metal bats to attack government officials, so please get to work on that, too.

I trust the studies

Doing a truly scientific study costs a great deal of money. You need to hire experts in many fields, including statistics, and you have to have independent experts validate your findings. Of course, you can collect anecdotal evidence or gather what you think are valid statistics and call it a study, but I doubt that anyone—even the deep-pockets "National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research"—has ever done a valid scientific study of metal versus wood bats.

[Jim Porter]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

Statistical evidence doesn't bear it out. Injury rates have not skyrocketed in metal bat leagues.

You cannot say that statistical evidence doesn't bear it out. No comprehensive studies have been conducted on the issue because so few leagues below the professional level use wooden bats, and meaningful data cannot be gathered. The question isn't whether there are more injuries -- injuries of this type are fairly rare in baseball. The question is whether the injuries are more serious.

Would a kid like Matt Cook, a freshman pitcher from Massachusetts whose skull was fractured by a line drive during batting practice this past March, have suffered the bleeding and swelling in his brain if wooden bats had been mandatory? Or would the reduction in ball speed from a wooden bat have given him just enough reaction time to lessen the damage? Would Matt have been spared the months of speech, physical, and occupational therapy required to give him a normal life again?

Would the half dozen or so kids killed each year by blunt force trauma to their heads or chests have survived if wooden bats were used instead of metal? Would that 12-year-old from New Jersey still be alive today?

I don't need a study to tell me what's obvious after witnessing what metal bats have become capable of doing over the last 20+ years.

[LakeErieUmp]

You can ask Herb Score if a liner off a wood bat causes injury.

[LakeErieUmp]

Ray Chapman was hit in the head with a pitched ball and died. Tony Conigliaro was hit in the head with a pitched ball and did not. There is no way Carl Mays threw a 1920 baseball faster than Jack Hamilton threw the more tightly wound 1967 version. Sometimes it is not just velocity. Things happen. Sad, but they happen. Anecdotal incidents really don't determine whether metal bats are inherently more dangerous.

[Jim Porter]

Originally Posted by LakeErieUmp

You can ask Herb Score if a liner off a wood bat causes injury.

Yep, Herb Score -- a Major League pitcher who was indeed struck in the face from a line drive off a wooden bat. Herb Score, who also recovered his full vision and returned to play professional baseball again.

I wonder if the freshman high schooler Matt Cook will have the same result. Oh, that's right -- Matt first has to relearn how to walk and talk again. How about the 12-year-old in New Jersey? I don't think he'll come back. He's dead.