80’s bats weren’t close to being juiced like the 90’s BESR bats. The original B5 was just better than what came previously and everyone fell in love with it because of the barrel size vs what was typical of the era. The vid showing 96mph exit velo is pretty typical of toned down “wood like” bbcor of today, the best are over 100 just like maple bats can reach, so nothing special. BESR have seen upwards of 115-120mph. I still have my b5 from 1983. I tried the new B5 and it’s crap compared to the top bbcor’s. Chalk up the homeruns early to pitching and rhoids, we had 2 guys juicing on my HS team in early to mid 80’s. They did it more for the muscles and girls than baseball performance but man did they hit the ball far.
ps. kids uSSSa bats are insane and an embarrassment to baseball.