While I was browsing through the New York Daily News website (mostly to find more about the Yankees in yellow thongs), I noticed a family in New Jersey is filing a lawsuit against Little League Baseball because of the medical damage a line drive off an aluminum bat did to their son. It is a debate that has raged for decades on the safety and plausibility of wooden versus aluminum bats at levels below the professional ranks, and with the College World Series there is no better time to reignite that fire. Most people still debate the truth to the fact that a baseball leaves the bat faster off a metal bat versus the wooden, but just look at the physics behind a swing. If you go back to your first Physics class, you remember that energy can't be created or destroyed, but instead is transferred. So when a bat shatters in a thousand pieces (hopefully nowhere near Roger Clemens) imagine the energy it took to break that bat, and where did that energy come from? The baseball.
Not only would this solve some of the injury concerns parents have it would also improve the college game by an exponential amount. One reason, beside the money, a lot of players elect to skip the college experience and begin in the minors, is because of the ability to begin swinging the wooden bats as early as possible and develop a feel for them so that when they hit their mid 20's they are already stars on their way up the list of Baseball America's Top Prospects.
The simple cost of paying for a few extra bats would be well worth the develop of more refined college ball players and reduce the possibility of injury at younger levels. Plus that cost isn't even really THAT big of a hurdle to jump over. With all the wood around us, used for infrastructure and such, I'm sure that is a tree out there that can handle the constant barrage of force a wooden bat goes through.
An all wooden bat concept throughout baseball would usher in a brand new error, while ending the era of "Fear the PING".
Not only would this solve some of the injury concerns parents have it would also improve the college game by an exponential amount. One reason, beside the money, a lot of players elect to skip the college experience and begin in the minors, is because of the ability to begin swinging the wooden bats as early as possible and develop a feel for them so that when they hit their mid 20's they are already stars on their way up the list of Baseball America's Top Prospects.
The simple cost of paying for a few extra bats would be well worth the develop of more refined college ball players and reduce the possibility of injury at younger levels. Plus that cost isn't even really THAT big of a hurdle to jump over. With all the wood around us, used for infrastructure and such, I'm sure that is a tree out there that can handle the constant barrage of force a wooden bat goes through.
An all wooden bat concept throughout baseball would usher in a brand new error, while ending the era of "Fear the PING".
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