@TxballDad good point. My son has re-taped all his knobs on bats (both wood and other) and has a lot less knob POST hamate surgery. After surgery he waited almost 3 weeks to start to swing a bat (Doc said can swing whenever he wanted post healing of wound from surgery). Hit wiffle balls for a couple of days and then moved to his lightest bat. Surgery was 10 days before national tourney schedule last summer. Was able to swing in games about a month post surgery but only 2-3 swings in cage pre-game and no swings in between games. The combo of a newer knob/handle and a bunch of sticky spray stuff/pinetar helped for the month and then shut it down because of pain.