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New crusade against aluminum bats?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by outofplace, Mar 17, 2010.

  1. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/north_bay&id=7332465

    Gunnar Sandberg, a 16-year-old high school pitcher from California, is in a medically-induced coma, courtesy of a come-backer to the head. Estimates on the velocity of the ball that hit him range between 100 and 130 MPH.

    His father is blaming aluminum bats, probably with good reason, so he is pushing for them to be banned from youth baseball. I didn't even realize that New York City and North Dakota already have such bans in place. Is it time to make everybody go back to wood?
     
  2. Past time.
    They should have been using wood bats years ago.
     
  3. CHETtheJET

    CHETtheJET Member

    the expense arguement is no longer a factor. a decent composite bat (which is more dangerous than metal) runs average 300 per. And the composites will break at some point. Better off buying your kid a supply of good wood.
     
  4. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    Didn't high school and college rule makers change the specs on aluminum bats so the ball wouldn't go as fast off the bat as it oce did?
     
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I'm going to have to reserve judgment until I hear what noted physicist Ari Fleischer has to say on behalf of the sporting-goods industry. That was really the courageous way to handle it the first time, hire Ari and have him troll the grounds at the Little League World Series.
     
  6. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    It isn't just a matter of safety, either. I have always thought that facing metal bats on the youth level discourages a lot of young pitchers from throwing inside. It's hard to develop the skill of breaking bats if they don't break.
     
  7. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    They won't let kids use their metal game bats at the local high school cage, only wood, because they tear up the netting.
     
  8. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    It's not just bats. You wonder at what point pitchers will be required to wear helmets and masks, like a lot of softball pitchers do (or should). I'm not sure whether Illinois requires it yet, but last year around me there were two high school girls who had serious facial injuries from line drives.

    My 10-year-old daughter is going to do a lot of pitching this spring, and we're getting her a helmet and mask.
     
  9. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    The NCAA did. Not sure about the NFHS
     
  10. Actually in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg wants this repealed. He held a couple of press conferences where he used studies showing that the ball does not come off the bat any faster with an aluminum bat.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    The crusade is anything but new. I wrote something on this while covering the CWS about 13 years ago.
     
  12. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    I always thought they used them so they wouldn't wear out the good, expensive metal bats as quickly.
     
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