Skip to main content

 I will spare everyone all the backstory and just offer up a general question     

2014 MAKO, (the orange one), end cap flew off bat twice during game, almost hit pitcher, after an average sized 12U player hit the ball. Does this indicate a bat modified/shaved by lathe. 

Umpire did nothing  

Endcaps don’t come off of bats right?  Unless the bat is really abused or bent. 

Thanks

Last edited by joemannix
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

I've seen plenty of endcaps come off of bats where I'm pretty sure the bats were not shaved.  It used to be a fairly common problem that has been reduced in recent years.  Your bat is four years old.  That's a pretty long life for a high performance bat.  Something's gotta give.  Once it starts to fail, it doesn't necessarily take a monster player or swing to finish it off.

Yes they were illegal when you put gorilla glue on them.  The only way they come off is if something becomes wrong.  It may not be tampered with but if you put it back on once it comes off it is illegal.  An umpire should turn it into the tournament director or  report to state high school if a cap ever comes off.  Does not mean they will but that is the procedure.  Again, something caused it to come off.

Yellow Easton bats about 6 years ago were terrible about this. We had numerous “team” bats do this. If it was during season we epoxy them back on. If not then we sent them back for warranty. Bats were “hot” but definitely not tampered with. Tough to justify throwing a $300 bat away because the end cap came off. Easton always replaced the bats but just took a while to get them back

PitchingFan posted:

Yes they were illegal when you put gorilla glue on them.  The only way they come off is if something becomes wrong.  It may not be tampered with but if you put it back on once it comes off it is illegal.  An umpire should turn it into the tournament director or  report to state high school if a cap ever comes off.  Does not mean they will but that is the procedure.  Again, something caused it to come off.

agreed, but as wareagle indicates the choice is to fix the bat or send it in and wait on a replacement that would not show up before the end of the season.  In the end I choose to fix the bat.

Are you saying that anytime an end cap comes off that the ump should take the bat and turn it in?  I have never seen that.  Maybe I just missed it but I can't recall that ever happening.  Especially at the HS level around here.  Heck Im not even sure the umps would know how to contact the state HS overloards.

BTW my experience has been more like shown in the video above.  End cap comes off, someone picks up the bat, looks at it, shows it to others and hands it back to the dugout.

Last edited by joes87

Here is what I found out, there is no way to know.  No surprise right?  But as I said I made some calls.  I have heard back from some people and I am waiting to hear back from others. I’m very confident that the bat in question was juiced and the cap came off from that alteration.

Pull up the Bryce Harper showcase video before he was drafted  and ask yourself if you’d like one of those bombs coming face high at your kid while on the pitchers mound. I think not.

Thanks for the responses. Harper uses Chandler bats now?  I had never heard of them. 

joes87 posted:
PitchingFan posted:

Yes they were illegal when you put gorilla glue on them.  The only way they come off is if something becomes wrong.  It may not be tampered with but if you put it back on once it comes off it is illegal.  An umpire should turn it into the tournament director or  report to state high school if a cap ever comes off.  Does not mean they will but that is the procedure.  Again, something caused it to come off.

agreed, but as wareagle indicates the choice is to fix the bat or send it in and wait on a replacement that would not show up before the end of the season.  In the end I choose to fix the bat.

Are you saying that anytime an end cap comes off that the ump should take the bat and turn it in?  I have never seen that.  Maybe I just missed it but I can't recall that ever happening.  Especially at the HS level around here.  Heck Im not even sure the umps would know how to contact the state HS overloards.

BTW my experience has been more like shown in the video above.  End cap comes off, someone picks up the bat, looks at it, shows it to others and hands it back to the dugout.

Once the end cap comes off as the umpire, I would remove the bat from play. It no longer conforms to the specifications from the manufacturer.  In PA. we do not confiscate bats or turn them into any authority. They are just illegal for play.  

piaa_ump posted:
joes87 posted:
PitchingFan posted:

Yes they were illegal when you put gorilla glue on them.  The only way they come off is if something becomes wrong.  It may not be tampered with but if you put it back on once it comes off it is illegal.  An umpire should turn it into the tournament director or  report to state high school if a cap ever comes off.  Does not mean they will but that is the procedure.  Again, something caused it to come off.

agreed, but as wareagle indicates the choice is to fix the bat or send it in and wait on a replacement that would not show up before the end of the season.  In the end I choose to fix the bat.

Are you saying that anytime an end cap comes off that the ump should take the bat and turn it in?  I have never seen that.  Maybe I just missed it but I can't recall that ever happening.  Especially at the HS level around here.  Heck Im not even sure the umps would know how to contact the state HS overloards.

BTW my experience has been more like shown in the video above.  End cap comes off, someone picks up the bat, looks at it, shows it to others and hands it back to the dugout.

Once the end cap comes off as the umpire, I would remove the bat from play. It no longer conforms to the specifications from the manufacturer.  In PA. we do not confiscate bats or turn them into any authority. They are just illegal for play.  

Agreed. And i agree that using gorilla glue or some type of epoxy renders that bat illegal for play, but i can say with a high level of confidence that a majority of folks who have end caps come off bats epoxy them back on and move along. If it’s done in a neat and clean manner no one would notice it. Not that they are trying to cheat but it’s the easiest solution.

Also i just went back and reread the ops original post. It looks like the ump let the bat back into the game. The bigger question here is not was it an illegal bat but rather why did the ump allow the bat back into the game. 

 

To the OP. My son had that orange Mako in LL. One heck of a bat, but the end cap coming off was common--so much so that when I called them about getting a warranty replacement for my son's unmodified end cap failure, they shipped one out the same day I called. I shipped the failed one back the next day. The rep on the phone was pretty open about the fact that the end cap issue was a known problem, so they had a stock of them on-hand for immediate replacement. Didn't have to wait for mine to get there, be evaluated, then ship a new one, etc.

Just my experience with the Mako, no necessarily proof that your situation didn't involve a doctored bat.

-42

joemannix posted:

Thanks for the replies and I do not agree.

At 13/14U (I forget which) our team played in the Cincy Flames Summer tournament. It was a big deal at the time, don't know about now. We had a couple of kids on the team that had yellow Easton composites. Now everyone knows the glues and fibers in a composite break down with use until they fail. During this time the bat gets hotter and hotter.  I guess that was happing to one of the bats because the boys took a real liking to it. They would pass it from batter to batter. That bat took quite the beating that weekend.

So it was in the semifinals I think we ran into a team from Ohio, the Glaciers. They had placed highly/won some big tournaments. I know because I looked them up once the sh*t started to hit the fan. We jumped all over them from the word go. By the end of the 3rd inning it was 11-0 I believe, and that's when the meltdown started. They made the ump check the bat, when he found nothing wrong with it they called the TD. That got them nowhere because we played the Flames and Tribe (back when Jo Adell was on it) and some other Ohio teams in round robins all the time so he knew us well. That all made for a good laugh. The sad part was we found out later some of their parents followed some of our players off the field harassing them. Dropping the f-bomb on them and such.

You've been told end caps come off all the time. Maybe you ought to let it go so you don't be "that guy".  

Last edited by SomeBaseballDad

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×