quote:Originally posted by Dear old Dad:
I would love to see College baseball go to the wood bat. It would extend the life of a lot of college pitchers arms. And the games would play more like the Major Leagues.
The extended arm life would be extended even farther if wood were used at the lower levels too.
IMHO, the over use is much more likely at lower levels. Couple that with much generally poorer mechanics and undoubtedly much less physical maturity. The slide toward injury starts there, not in the HS or College ranks.
Although I think going completely to wood would be the easiest way to get to where most people want to be, I don’t necessarily believe it’s the one and only way.
If the bat manufacturers want to make the non-wood or non-solid wood bats perform exactly like wood across the entire band of pitch speed, bat speeds, and where the ball strikes the bat, I wouldn’t care if they were used in the ML! So its not that I want to see wood, as much as I want to see the performance of wood.
Personally, I don’t see any reason why technology can’t produce a plywood, plastic, metal, carbon, or even corn cob bat that won’t perform exactly like wood. Its just that no one is forcing them to do it.