MLB umpire says that you can balk with a dead ball!

[Rich]

I have never seen a ball hit so hard and probably won't for quite some time. Stunned as I was, I was still able to make the umpire interference call and place the runners and deflect a mild argument that I should've scored the runner on third "cause he would've scored anyway."

There were no bat restrictions on that league last season, far as I know.

Now, the league I worked in MetroWest Massachusetts used wooden bats last year. I think I saw one home run the entire season.

I like wood bats, but at the same time, I don't think the average player is skilled enough to use them. The game suffers TOO much. Some kind of middle ground must be reached.

Actually, I think it was reached back in the early 80s. When I was of LL age, we had metal bats. But these things weren't the whipping sticks of today. Those bats were heavy and the ball didn't jump off them.

Or I just stunk as a player (actually, I was third in my ten team league in batting average when I was 12 and it was the highlight of my athletic "career"). Sigh.

Rich