Maple vs Ash

From what I understand, maple is supposed to be the stronger wood and will give the ball more jump. Last summer, my son went through a ton of maple bats as the quality was way down with last year's batch of wood. He actually broke a maple bat doing soft toss. At the end of the day, he didn't notice much of a difference with his hitting either way.

When ash breaks it splinters. When maple breaks it explodes. Ash might not last as long as maple but its cheaper to buy than maple. Ash is also a lighter wood. Many people prefer one or the other, but all in all theres not to much of a difference.

quote:

When maple breaks it explodes.

Sometimes

So a maple bat is going to last me a longer time. Is that right? Also what are some good brands of both Ash and maple? ie. Louisville Slugger, D-Bat, TomCat, Marucci. I also cant spend $100+ on a wood bat either.

Thanks

The next phase is Birch

http://www.barnstablebat.com/newnahaprqub.html

http://www.birchbats.com/

Looks good. Also whats the difference between the different types of maples. Such as I have seen, Rock Maple, Sugar Maple, Hard Maple, and then I saw one that just said Maple. Whats up there? Are there a ceartain sub species of the wood that are better than others?

Do yourself a favor:

http://www.justbats.com/product.view.aspx?p=8866

thats less than $15 per

.

One would think learning to hit with wood at the least cost is more important than what bat should be used...........initially

WOWW!!!!!!! Thanks OldSlug8. Thats a definate buy there. Who cares if its mis printed its 6 bats for the price of 1. Thats the deal Ive been looking for now I can try all or at least most all of the different woods and see what I like best. Thanks!

You are welcome

I'm a fan of ash bats. As we've seen more and more maple come into use, the quality of the wood has gone down and the maple bats aren't as durable as they used to be. We've had great success with quality ash bats.

One significant change coming to summer baseball in 2009 is that Connie Mack Baseball is going to wood or wood/composite bats only. I don't know if this is nationwide or only for the western region, but I was recently advised that our league will no longer allow metal bats. HOORAY! We've been using wood bats for a long time, and I'm a firm believer that using wood helps build better hitters.

The Independent Frontier League in the Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan area has banned maple bats due to the way they break and become quite dangerous...