I read the article on your son in the ESPN magazine, over and over again. I would like to let you know how sorry I am, what happened to your son is very tragic and it makes me extremely sad to know a fellow baseball player, who loved the game so much, died because of aluminum bats. I along with many other poeple believe it was the bat. Like your son I am a pitcher for my high school varsity baseball team. And I'll tell you that everytime a ball zips past my head and I can hear the ball 'sizzle'...I fear for my own safety, and know that i know the damage that these bats have caused, I really wish something would be done about them. Earlier in my High School season I witness to of the most similar and amazing homeruns with aluminum bats. One home run was hit by my teammate...A senior, decent size around six foot and one hundred seventy pounds. He is a pretty strong boy and the homerun he hit was off the handle of his bat, I would say four to five inches away from the beginning of the grip, which ended up sending the ball over the 335 foot marker on the fence. Then another I witness Dan McDonald hit. Im not sure if you have heard of him yet but he is an amazing ball player who got drafted in the 6th round of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft. There was a seventy five mile per hour fastball thrown out of the strike zone....He swung and hit the ball over the fence..The thing is he hit the ball off the very end of the bat, just making contact...Now if these were wooden bats the first homerun would have led to a broken bat and a pop fly to the short stop. The second homerun would have been a little dinky grounder to the thirdbasemen. To have bat makers and Baseball officials or whatever say its not the bat it can happen wiht any type of bat and to any kid. I say that is absurd. Along wiht being a pitcher I play third base. Having a ball hit to be off an aluminum bat gives me little time to react and I barely need to charge the ball... When the ball comes off a wooden bat I can not only charge but I have time to see where the runner is. Unless the batter is 220 pounds of pure muscle and has a swing like Barry Bonds, I doubt any High School or Legion ball player is going to be hitting the ball 110 miles per hour off of a wooden bat...I just felt I needed to express my opinion and let you know I support you 100% and hope the fight to remove aluminum bats will succeed.
With all my Support,
Sean
P.S. The Major Leagues use wooden bats, Why use aluminum all the way to college when it changes in the Big leagues...Why not get used to them now, It would give scouts a real look at how good a player is...