Articles
Forever #11
Click on the baseballs to view the link.
Added - October 1st, 2004
Go to the bottom of the website to the red background article Years ago many leagues switched from wood bats to metal bats when they were first invented to save money from broken wood bats. Since then the pricing of metal bats has changed dramatically. Metal bats are now running $300+ today compared to $25.00 back in 1973. Wood bats are still a bargain today at under $35.00 a bat. It is also a myth that metal bats will last forever. They don't even come close. They get hairline fractures from hitting and then go dead after a few seasons of play. Since School Bat rules change so much they become illegal to use. On the other hand wood bats will last several seasons if proper hitting mechanics are used. Wood bats tend to break only when you hit the inside pitch off the handle of the bat or the outside pitch off the end of the bat. Just turn your label face up or face down and hit off the sweet spot and your wood bat will last you a very long time and save you a lot of money!"
Garden State Baseball League - Website - "Wood vs. Metal
Wood Bats will cost you less in the long run.
NO CONTEST - WOOD WINS EVERY TIME"
Added - October 1st, 2004
Garden State Baseball League - Website - "Why Wood Bats?
You start now, training with a wood bat, not then. You start your swing with what the scouts call live-hands and avoid what they call appropriately enough, dead hands you learn the strike zone; I mean really focus on good pitches you aim at the art of perfecting the flat swing.
What's the difference between a wood bat and a metal bat?"
Added - August 22nd, 2004
High School Baseball Web - "How Does The Aluminum Bat Hurt Your Swing?"
"Year after year, I see newly drafted players with both an extremely long swing and an ego to match. These guys have been fooled into thinking they are professional hitters when, in reality, they merely had an aluminum bat swing."
by: Dave Hudgens
Assistant Director of Player Development
Hitting Coordinator / Oakland Athletics
Added - July 22nd, 2004
The Sporting News - "Bat Should Crack, Not Skulls" dated June 24th, 2002
Bats are tested in a laboratory on a machine set at 70mph pitch speed and a 66mph swing speed. Why not test at for more realistic numbers, say, 85mph pitches and 80mph swings?
Added - July 22nd, 2004
New York Daily News - "Scrape Metal" dated November 24th, 2002
"Do there have to be people dying all over the place before we say, 'Hey, we've got a problem here'?" says Anthony's father, Freddy. "Can't we be proactive, instead of reactive?"
Added - July 22nd, 2004
The Sporting News - "Bat Should Crack, Not Skulls" dated June 24th, 2002
Bats are tested in a laboratory on a machine set at 70mph pitch speed and a 66mph swing speed. Why not test at for more realistic numbers, say, 85mph pitches and 80mph swings?
Added - July 22nd, 2004
ESPN The Magazine Extra - "Bat controversy lingers over NCAA" dated March 29th, 2000
The performance of aluminum bats has sparked a controversy that now has the NCAA accused of ignoring safety standards recommended by its own rules committee...
This is the
Consumer Product Safety Commission August 2000 findings on Aluminum Bats.
The article begins with a letter from Janiece Landry describing her son Josh
nearly lost his life with the same injury that happened to Brandon. The
article is quite lengthy with 70 pages but it is has may examples of injuries
and deaths caused by players being stuck with baseballs hit with an aluminum
bat. Jack McKay is within these articles too. This is a
site by SafeChild.net which discusses the Sports Safety. Baseball,
softball and teeball are among the most popular sports in the US with an
estimated 6 million children ages 5 - 14 participating in organized leagues and
13 million in non-league play. Hospital emergency departments treat more
then 95,000 baseball-related injuries and 30,000 softball-related injuries among
players under age 15 each year. Catchers are at greatest risk of injury.A study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of the 81 reports it received of baseball-related deaths of children between 1973 and 1995, found that 59 of the deaths were caused by ball impact and 13 were caused by bat impact. Of the 68 ball impact deaths, 38 resulted from blows to the chest while 21 deaths were caused by a ball hitting a player's head.
This is the
web site from the UMass-Lowell Baseball Research Center which
tests the bat performance for the NCAA and Major League Baseball. They are
the ones who approve the new bats each year. On this web site you can see
which bats are legal for 2004, click on the following link
NCAA baseball bats
The second paragraph on the paper "Limited Information" states,
"The UMLBRC has received numerous requests for specific batted-ball speeds. The UMLBRC is not at liberty to share such information. The only information that can be shared with parties outside the NCAA, respective bat company and the UMLBRC is that the bat PASSED the certification test. This web site will not get involved with the potential promoting of one bat over another based on lab-testing performances. Likewise, the bat companies are not suppose to be divulging any specifics on the test results." Obviously they have the speeds for the bats, now the question is how fast does the aluminum bats out-perform the wood bats?
Another good link on this site is the method that they test the bats or the Certification Protocol. This explains how they determine the BESR or Ball Exit Speed Ratio NCAA Baseball Bat Certification Protocol
This is the
a web site by Alan Nathan which documents several issues about "The Physics of Baseball".
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