Metal vs. wood length of games
 

I still prefer wood to metal but here is what I have noticed in umpiring a few wood bat tournaments this year.

The games in terms of lenght of time is not that significant. Here's what I have noticed and wanted your experiences.

The coaches approach to a wood bat game is entriely different than with metal. For the most part (unless you have a really good stud F1), the coaches approach with metal bats is that his team will need to score more than 2-4 runs to win. Not as much small ball and the hitters since they have a metal bat swing the bats more freely.

When wood is used, the coach wants his hitters to be more patient and plays more small ball. The hitters since they only use wood on occassions such as tournaments are not as comfortable and therefore are not as "free swinging" as they would be with a metal bat.

Therefore, for the most part I haven't noticed any real significance in time savings from metal to wood. More deeper counts with wood then with metal.

Perhaps if wood were adopted permanetly, then the batters would get used to it and the game would move along, however, when most of the players use metal for the HS season etc. and only use wood on special occassions, the lenght of the games is not all that significant.

Don't get me wrong I still prefer wood bat games but the point I was making is that I have not noticed any significance in time savings unless you have really good F1's. But when you have really good F1's the game moves quickly whether wood or metal is used.

What have you noticed?

Pete Booth

I have found teams at wood bat tournaments to fall into two categories. The first are those who have not been coached on hitting with wood. They still swing all out on inside pitches with out adjusting, but the wood handle does not produce doubles, it either provides an easy dribbler to the pitcher, or it breaks.

The teams that know how to handle a wood bat swing at the close outside pitches, hit a lot of singles and are agressive on the bases.

I worked two such games yesterday. The first ended 3-1 in 1:17, the other 2-1 in 1:25.

I love wood bats.

My experience has been similar to Garth's. Wooden bat games for me have been generally very short. I don't get the marathon games with the football-style scores. It's very rare -- almost non-existent -- to get two pitchers who can't find the strike zone. I find pitchers are much more confident in wooden bat leagues and therefore are more aggressive.

my wood bat games have averaged around 1:40 (and they were blowouts- 8 or 9 runs). One game was a 4-2 ending in 1:20

It has been my experience that wood bat games are shorter. Some hits through the infield become routine grounders, there are less THTH grounders directly at an infielder and there are more easy flys to the outfield vs. home runs and gappers. Lower scoring games with lots of good defense go faster.

Wood, wood, wood. Give me wood every time, I say (somehow, that didn't sound right).

Besides the length of the games, I much prefer the "crack" of the bat vs. the "ping" of the bat any day!

I work a D2 league that only plays with wood bats during conference games. I had 4 plate games (in this conference) this year and 3 were under a 1:30. Games moved along and fielders were not ducking for cover to get out of the way of the ball.

I am sorry I did not mention this. At least 2 of these games were 9 innings.

Peace