Turns Out, Aluminum Bats May Be Dangerous, Obnoxious, Banned
I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t they give these metal bats dangerous-sounding names? Who’s going to be afraid of a li’l ol’ typhoon? Besides the Bengladeshi in 1970 or the Chinese in 1939, I mean?
What makes people think these things do any damage?
An in-game incident earlier this year left Marin County teen pitcher Gunnar Sandberg comatose for weeks. It’s also forced California legislature to advance a bill halting the use of aluminum bats for two years while high school level governmental bodies a) review the safety of the bats and b) wait to see if the NCAA bans any metal bats upon the 2012 release of test results surrounding bats already on the hot seat. The incident with Sandberg, according to Easton Bell Sports, would have totally happened even if wooden bats were used. I probably don’t have to tell you that Easton makes aluminum bats. Oddly enough, I do feel the need to tell you Easton produced those sissy-looking sticks at the top of this page. Y’know, the ones that are in no way designed to appear intimidating.
The California bill, introduced by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, passed the Senate Education Committee on a 5-1 vote and now moves to the full Senate for consideration.
At the legislative hearing, supporters of the moratorium said metal alloy and aluminum bats make baseballs travel faster and lead to more serious injuries.
Most metal bats are aluminum, but some bats are made of a blend of metals or a composite of metals, resin and fibers. Huffman said that composite bats are particularly susceptible to the “trampoline effect,” or extra bounce, that metal bats provide. He added that over time, the metals can loosen up and provide a larger trampoline effect.
“The hyper-performance of high tech metal baseball bats has gone too far,” Huffman told the committee. “It’s increasing the risk of serious injury and yes, death, for young people and we have to do something about it.”
Bah. That’s what they said about players ingesting steroids. Frankly, I don’t understand how baseball plans to develop and prosper under such stifling growth conditions if it disallows both players and player equipment from developing into hyper-machines.
Surely someone out there is willing to defend the honor of the good ol’ fashioned American metal alloy thunder stick?
“The difference between the two of them … is actually very narrow,” said Rand Martin, representing Easton Bell Sports, a company that manufactures both wooden and metal bats.
“The situation, as tragic as it was in Marin County, would have happened exactly the same way if that hitter had hit that ball off a wooden bat,” he said.
See? And he’s an expert; an expert with absolutely no foreseeable reason to lie other than the fear of losing 50 percent of company profits from baseball bat manufacturing. Any fool can tell you that a tightly-wound ball bounces off a soft wooden bat with the same force as an impenetrable factory-designed composite of industrial metals. I’m serious – ask a fool, he’ll tell you that.
Were the metal sword-wielding warriors in the “Lord of the Rings” calm and collected around the Ents? No. Why? Because wood crushes metal. Tolkien knew what’s up.
But it gets worse. Opponents of the 2-year moratorium argue that, because it’s so much easier to use metal bats, high schoolers won’t be as good if they switch to oppressive wooden models.
“I’m more concerned with the young man at the high school level having the opportunity to play the game,” said Guy Anderson, baseball coach for Cordova High School in Rancho Cordova.
Yup. Just as Gunnar Sandberg had the opportunity to play the game … and now it’s over. How dare we deny the same opportunities to other kids.
I suppose next we’re going to demand that our pre-schoolers stop hitting off tees or that our teenage gymnasts start telling the truth about their age? That’s just not how things are done.
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2 Responses for “Turns Out, Aluminum Bats May Be Dangerous, Obnoxious, Banned”
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Yeah. Easton’s claim that their aluminum bats having no more power than a wooden bat is not only false, but probably (hopefully) also undercuts their bat sales.
I didn’t delve deeply into the topic of why amateurs are still using metal bats anyway, but this quote would make a solid jumpin’ off point:
“If you have to give a steroid bat to a kid, if that’s the definition of success, then I don’t think we’ve been successful at defining success,” Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles.
Fantastic! Great column — you cut through the bat cartel’s smokescreen with an appropriate dose of sarcasm and incredulity. I especially like the bat guys’ claim that the exact same injuries to the same people at the same moment will always occur, whether you use wood bats or their metal thundersticks. I just God just marks people for horrific injury and death and that’s that. Nevermind that a wood bat would have (a) been swung at a slower bat speed, (b) been much less likely to cause a hard-hit line drive because of the dramatically smaller sweet spot, (c) given the pitcher at least a bit more reaction time because the ball would have had less velocity, and (d) caused less damage even if it did still manage to hit the pitcher. I guess the poor 13-year old kid in New York who died yesterday from a metal bat line drive was just preordained to suffer that precise fate. No, the metal bat had nothing to do with it….