Metal Bats Banned In The City of Chicago?

quote:

Originally posted by Dolphin Mom:
He believes the use of metal bats are a safety hazard and should be banned. He bases his position on the City of New York banning the use of metal bats.

I would hope he bases his position on something a little more substantive than the City of New York is doing it.

That would give suburban schools unfair advantage .

These Aldermen are nuts ..should be concerned about more important things that they were elected to do in the first place.

How are the city schools going to be able to afford to continually replace broken wood bats ?

IMO everyone should get rid of metal bats and use only wood.

I wrote a piece on wood bats about 18 months ago when the IHSA was studying it. Here it is:

Ryan Camp never saw the baseball that hit him in the head.

Camp, a 6-foot-2 junior pitcher from Limestone, is one of the hardest throwers in central Illinois, thanks to a fastball clocked at 86 mph.

But on March 28, a line drive off the bat of Addison Trail's Dave Ciaglia - traveling much faster than it was thrown - struck Camp in the head. The ball hit him just an inch above the right temple and ricocheted toward the left side of the infield.

"I never even saw it," Camp said one month after suffering the injury. "A couple of teammates have told me that it was hit so hard that they couldn't even see it until it bounced off my head."

Camp spent the night at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria after doctors discovered blood in the fluid around his brain. He also experienced meningitis-like symptoms (nausea and dizziness) and doctors feared he might have a seizure.

Camp was fortunate. Those injuries quickly subsided and he returned to the mound just days later. On the following Monday, he picked up a save.

"I wasn't too worried about going back out there," Camp said. "I just knew I had to throw strikes and my defense would take care of me.

"It hasn't really bothered me since."

Camp is the fourth high school pitcher from Illinois to sustain a head injury from a batted ball in the last three seasons, joining Oak Lawn's Bill Kalant, Ottawa's Jared Mundt and Bloomington Central Catholic's Ben Heaton - all of whom were injured in the last two years by balls hit by aluminum bats.

Although the Illinois High School Association is aware of those injuries, it does not track them. Nor does the National Federation of State High School Associations. And therein lies the problem.

No national system

In the debate over the safety of wood bats vs. aluminum bats, the lack of such a system prevents any real discourse from taking place.

"All the injury information we have is anecdotal," said Elliot Hopkins, assistant director of the NFHS and the baseball liaison. "So we really don't have any hard information as to what is safer."

Nevertheless, the NFHS is starting to provide grants in an effort to study the debate further. The IHSA received one of those grants - worth $20,000- and distributed it among five conferences: the Apollo, Big Northern, Heart of Illinois, Private School League and Three Rivers.

"We financed the purchase of the bats, that's all," Hopkins said. "At the end of the year in June, we'll say thanks for the data and that's it.

"This isn't intended to spur immediate change. Rather, we want to collect enough data to study the matter thoroughly."

The areas of study aren't limited to injuries either.

"Of course, we're going to look at risk minimization," Hopkins said. "But we're also going to look at things like time of game and the scores of the games played with wood bats."

Currently, Illinois is just one of two states using wood bats. North Dakota made the change of its own accord and is playing its first season under the mandate all its schools use wood. Still the Roughrider State is reporting its data as well.

"If you have just one state or 50 schools doing it, you don't have much to go on," Hopkins said. "But if you have an entire state and 50 schools in another, then you've got some information to work with."

The study is the first of its kind at the high school level and one of the first at any level of baseball.

Previous studies

Until now, studies done in the wood-vs.-aluminum debate focused solely on bat performance. In laymen's terms, researchers studied whether each type of bat hit balls equally hard or whether one type produced a harder-hit ball than the other.

Dr. Alan M. Nathan is a professor of physics at the University of Illinois. But in his spare time, he applies his knowledge of physics to baseball. Nathan is a member of NCAA Baseball Research Panel and has extensively studied the performance of wood bats vs. aluminum.

"There is no question that aluminum bats out-perform wood bats," Nathan said. "You'd have to be living in a cave not to know that.

"To me, the question is how much? We know how to pose the question, we just don't know the answer."

NCAA and NFHS rules mandate a bat's ball-exit speed ratio (BESR) cannot exceed 97 mph. A bat's BESR is tested by a bat swung with a speed of 66 mph hitting a ball pitched at 70 mph.

The NCAA found that a ball hit by a wood bat under those conditions would leave a bat no faster than 96 mph. The benchmark was set at 97 to account for any unknowns in the testing.

But according to Nathan's paper "Some Thoughts on Wood vs. Aluminum Bats," presented to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association on Jan. 10, 2003, there is a problem with the test: it doesn't take into account the weight distribution of the bats or the moment of inertia (MOI).

A wood bat tends to be heavier on the end, while an aluminum bat's weight is concentrated near the handle. As a result, a player can swing an aluminum bat faster than he could a wood bat. Nathan estimates a faster swing speed thanks to a smaller MOI could result in a ball with an exit speed of 101.5 mph.

"In terms of safety, which is what it seems to be about, the question is how does that change the reaction time of the pitcher," Nathan said.

But few studies measured a wood bat's performance on other facets of the game: runs scored, extra-base hits, time of game, etc. Those are things the NFHS and the IHSA set out to measure.

The big picture

A little more than a year ago, the Chicago Public League proposed a switch to wood bats for all its member schools. CPL coaches voted it down.

According to Anthony Holman, who oversees baseball for the IHSA, his organization feared the next vote might come from the Illinois legislature and result in a mandate.

"We wanted to get out in front of this," Holman said. "We didn't want the legislature here forcing it on us like in New York City, Pennsylvania or North Dakota.

"We don't want to be in that position."

But as Holman tried to gather information, he couldn't find what he sought.

"The studies we were finding didn't answer the questions we had," Holman said. "The NCAA is studying batted-ball injuries during play in NCAA-sanctioned summer leagues, but that's a three-year study that's just getting started.

"The American Legion did a study similar to the NCAA study, but there's never been one that focused on high school baseball."

Holman wants to make it clear this study is not the first step toward the IHSA mandating wood bats.

"There's no preconceived notions here," Holman said. "We just want the data. Once that data is delivered in June, we'll sit down, take a look at it and see what it tells us."

These are just my thoughts and not a rebuttal to any post here.
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The Demarini maple composites would do the trick. They'd last the high school season, and the $115 cost is less than a cruddy aluminum, and significantly less than the cost of most aluminums the kids swing. The kids might not like swinging them, fans and players of the game might not like how it changes the game: but the solution is certainly not cost prohibitive.

Get in the know!

My son is playing in the White Sox fall wooden bat league.

Yes, you do lose "hits" with wood bats at times, but all the kids love using them.

When Al bats are banned in Chicago, will Dorothy Tillman bring one to a City Council meeting and wave it around in the air?

Second Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti believes that the use of wooden bats in the city will revitalize interest in playing the game of baseball in urban areas, i.e. New York. He feels when the game is sanitized of metal bats it will be safer at all levels of play and will increase the level of interest in the game. However, this issue is far more complex than the use of a type of bat.

He said that he feels that the game has become too dangerous and it is because of the use of metal bats. I guess the baseball experts in the Chicago City Council will decide this one.

Once again government comes to the rescue!

to say that wood bats would create more interest is one of the dumbest things I ever heard. I think he's searching for an excuse to propose a rule that he personally rather see happen based on his preference, nothing else. I would say fixing up the fields and making them playable and keeping them up would draw more interest. Not having kids play on glass and beat up infields where bad hops lead to black eyes. Baseball is also a sport that takes a lot of practice, even more so with a wood bat, and kids just don't want to take the time to master it. That's why it's not popular, it's even a cheap sport and something you can practice on your own with a tee or a ball and a wall but it's a game of failure and kids now a days want instant gratification and they always want to be winners cause that's how things are switching to. Games with no scores, everyone wins, everyone gets a trophy, mommy and daddy take you out for ice cream, if you don't make the team your daddy just forms a travel team you can play on and he coaches and he plays his son and his friends and kids get sick of the politics and just quit. That's the problem, not wood bats.

I do agree with Tuzigoot though, a composite will last the entire season and is one third the cost of metal bats. People always say wood will cost more, i think it's the exact opposite. Metal bats all bend and dent, especially in the cold, kids are usig 2 a season at $400 a crack. I think the metal bat manufactorers are the one's creating this false rumor because it would mean people wouldn't be buying their $400 bats.............which is a ridiculous price. You can go through 8 normal wood bats at that cost. Wood bat is a cheaper alternative without question. It's just a matter that you have to do it across the board. It's not fair to have some people using aluminum and some wood, the numbers produced would be very different and it would hurt things like all-conference, all-area, all-state if your comparing players. I don't have an opinion either way but for once i'd like people to tell the truth when talking about this switch rather than just making false assumptions and bringing their personal feelings into it. I don't think the big business of aluminum bats would switch to wood without a huge fight or a guarantee from the HS and colleges they sponsor that they will still use them and allow them to make the wood bats they would now be using. This is basically become a political issue about money, like everything else.

Very few kids use $400.00 metal bats. I got a "last year's model" Voodoo online for $229.00 a couple of years ago. When it cracked, they sent me a brand new one. So two full seasons for $229.00.

My son went through 4 wood bats this season. He plays a lot of wood bat games with Norwood. $50.00 -$79.00 for each.

He had a Demarini composite bat. It did last a long time. I hated it. I thought it was "dead". He liked it, but when he hit the ball solidly, I didn't think it went as far as a regular wood bat. I was happy when it "gave way".

I like the game with wood or metal. I think wood costs way too much.

how many people buy one year old metal bats? how many exchange them for free new one's? I bet not even half the kids. The kids I see all have the brand new model that just came out, $300-$400 at a crack. The demarini's don't have less pop than a normal wood, nor does a baum bat. It's just in your head that you have to have a maple or whatever else the advertiser told you the pro's were using. They hit a ton of homer's with Ash not too long ago, now Maple is what is needed?

If your swinging a metal all the time, in a cage, etc it's going to dent. It just is. I think the cost is very comparable if not better for the wood. I think him not hitting the ball that far was probably because he isn't strong enough yet to swing a wood, most college kids aren't even yet. That's why HS kids are so reluctant to use them regularily, their numbers, especially extra base hits would be considerably low. I think it would also speed up the game, games would end way before 2 hours wiht the wood.

I would assume that this would also impact the city softball programs and summer leagues. Thus, also affecting tournament play. Both in baseball and softball, those dollars will be leaving the city since on outside teams will venture into the city with wood bats. Being a downstater I don't know if this is any concern at all as I don't have insights into select/travel ball in that area.

Also, those changes may cause those D-I schools to violate their conference rules. Again, collegiately, I don't think anyone will want to go to a school that only uses wood. Why would they? Again, I know in softball it will really hurt their ability to recruit. NO ONE IN SOFTBALL EVEN KNOWS WHERE TO GET WOODEN BATS.

I think you may have got a bad Demarini. My son has had two of them over the last two years, and IMO the wear in them has been normal wear and tear. He uses them for BP all year round, and during the summer and fall leagues. The majority of the kids my son plays with, and the opposing players I've seen are swinging the Demarinis; I believe they are the preferred bat by most. Lots of tazers and big flys coming off these bats, they've got great pop. They are also guaranteed for 3-months, about the length of a HS season if you get one that craps out on you. Again the switch to wood is not cost prohibitive, it has become completely political.

One final note regarding analyzing data from studies; one could linear regress the data, and one could chi-square it, and draw completely different conclusions. Much like a poll, you can get the results you desire.

"Its better to burn out, than fade away. MOM!"

Clancy Brown

me and Tuzi are agreeing alot today, something must be up.

The Demarini composite bat changed. It used to have a rod in the center. In 2007, my son could't use it in the NABF World Series, it was deemed illegal. This year, they allow the new Demarini composire because it no longer had the rod in the center. Perhaps, that is the difference.

Meanwhile, since the Demarini had been banned, he brought Bamboo down there. That was banned because they said it wasn't wood. I think they check my kid's bat bag, and then ban what ever is inside.

And Nails, I did see a difference between maple and the composite. But, maybe it was just a bad bat. He is plenty strong enough to hit with wood and was named to the NABF all-tournament team.

You brought something up that slipped my mind. Bamboo bats, those are also unbreakable, alot cheaper than the Demarini, and have plenty of pop. those would be a cheaper, better alternative than aluminum. If in fact they would change over, like I said when people bring up money it isn't that the wood would cost more because they break, there's plenty of unbreakable options out there as we discussed. The issue of money is how much money the aluminum bat company's would lose that's the money issue. The breaking 100 bats a year and all that is irrelevant if your using composites, bamboo, baum, etc.