Equipment Questions

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by wadeintothem

Or.. you could just let it go... because it is not dangerous at all and this is heavy handed OOO. The intent of ASA rules is to prevent a bat from being dangerous when in play or in some cases equipment which is dangerous because it may fly off the bat. It is not to address warm up or other practice equipment which is not dangerous. Some teams use the heavy warm up bats to warm up, others buy the adjustable weighted bats. There are no problems with these IMO. If someone comes to bat with their adjustable weight warm up stick.. enforce the penalty.. otherwise chill out.

In the words of my former boss... Horse poopey. Actually, I can't type what he normally said, but you get the point.

Mike's right, it is a safety issue. For example, there's a team here that took the end of a metal bat, filled it with sand, and somehow fitted it to a wooden bat handle. Nice and heavy, great for loosening up the arms to hit the long ball. However, I have no idea how this thing was constructed, and there's the definite possibility that it may fly apart while they're swinging it, nailing the catcher who's trailing the BR.

There are a million scenarios that we could all come up with that say why a non-approved bat could be dangerous in the on-deck circle, or why it's no big deal. However, the rules are rules, and the on-deck circle can have only one warm-up bat, two legal bats, or a combination of the two. Nothing else enters that circle, and it was pretty obvious that ASA had safety in mind when they wrote that rule. Restricting the on-deck circle to having only approved equipment in it is the easiest way for ASA to maintain the line between safety and peril.

OOO? Methinks not, but maybe your lawyer is better than mine.