I didn't realize it had passed the NYC Council. Did Bloomberg sign it? If so, did we ever get all that threatened litigation? I wonder what their basis for suit would be?
I don't know that I've ever been convinced this is a safety issue. But having seen teenagers play with both metal and wood, it's just a better game with wood. It really separates the real hitters from the pretenders, that's for sure.
The thing that bugs me about metal is not whether it hits the ball farther. It's when the pitcher gets a kid on the handle and he muscles it into the shallow OF grass for an undeserved blooper hit. Or when the batter hits it off the trademark area and gets a line drive hit out of it, instead of a shattered bat pop out. (But then, I'm an old pitcher, and a pitcher's dad.)
I don't know that wood is any more expensive. In most programs the kids are supplying their own bats, and it's not unusual to see a kid buy two $200 & up bats each year. A very good wood bat can be had in the $75 range, so you can go through a lot of wood in a year on the same budget you currently have for metal. And when players get used to wood, they stop breaking their bats so often, too.
Plus, a lot of kids are already buying wood to use in drills or summer play. For those guys, doing away with metal would save them (or their parents) a tidy sum.
Which I guess tells you all you need to know about why Easton is so up in arms about this kind of legislation.