When's the vote on the 25 cent trolly to Ebbets Field?
>> Thursday
I'm not really sure what to make of this, but the New York City Council voted 40-6 yesterday to ban the use of metal bats in high school baseball games.
This is widely considered a giant victory in the battle to return baseball to exactly the way it was when today's government officials were growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.
Next on the agenda, banning of astroturf, $7 beers, getting the Giants and Dodgers to move back to New York, making baseball cards legal currency in New York, and putting more "gritty" Italians with "hustle and moxie" and who played "for love of the game" back in baseball.
Cause it's not like, you know, a city the size of New York has any issues that could possibly be more important than what kind of bat little Jimmy uses.
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Actually, metal bats are dangerous at the high school and college level. The speed at which a ball comes off a metal bat is much greater than from a wood bat. It's to protect little Johnny from losing his head to little Jimmy's comebacker.
"In 2005, an American Legion Baseball study found no substantial scientific proof to support the argument that wooden bats are safer than metal bats, which have been in use since the early 1970s."
I'm just reading the article.
Here's the press release from the study they mention. Sources seem pretty credible.
American Legion Baseball Lets Bat Rule Stand
INDIANAPOLIS (May 5, 2005) -- Following a nine-month review, the American Legion’s National Baseball Subcommittee has concluded that there is no substantial evidence in scientific research to support the claim that baseball bats made from wood are “safer” than bats manufactured from metal or composite materials.
The issue has been examined for years. Statistics compiled from numerous studies by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Institute for Sports Science and Safety, were among the several studies considered by The American Legion in reaching their conclusion.
The subject was brought to the national level by Legionnaires in Florida and Montana, where in 2003 an American Legion baseball pitcher died as a result of a head injury from a baseball hit with a metal bat.
“We were concerned then and we are concerned now for the safety of the game and the safety of the young athletes who participate in it,” said Larry Price, Chairman of the subcommittee. “With deference to the family of the young man we have given the matter our fullest attention over the last nine months. We have collected, compiled and distributed for the committee’s study a great deal of technical information, scientific analysis and expert opinion. We have heard from both camps - wood and non-wood - and we have found no clear evidence of unreasonable risk of injury or death with the use of non-wood bats in the game of baseball.”
In a twenty-year study by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research (1982-2002), 7 deaths of high school aged baseball players were recorded. In that same period, there were 6 deaths in soccer, 20 deaths in track, and 92 deaths associated with football.
Price offered that the game of baseball is one of the safest sports played today in high school and at the college level, noting that, “Injuries and, tragically, deaths occur in nearly every sport. By comparison, death on a baseball diamond is extremely rare.”
Meeting at Indianapolis, Ind. in their semi-annual gathering, the eight-member subcommittee heard from David Cook, president of Hoosier Bat Company and Jim Darby, vice-president for Easton Bat Company. Both are experts in the manufacture and use of wood and non-wood bats, respectively.
“Nearly every amateur baseball organization, from the NCAA to Little League has closely monitored and studied the use and safety of bats. These organizations, about 19 in number, permit teams to use both wood and non-wood bats,” said Price.
Price noted that another three-year independent study on bat safety is being organized. The study is being directed by Dr. Fred Mueller, a member of the USA Baseball Medical and Safety Committee and Director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.
“We look eagerly toward its results,” said Price, “For now, finding no substantial evidence in scientific research on which to base a decision to ban non-wood bats from the field of play, The American Legion will maintain the current rule, which leaves the option for wood bats to the teams that play American Legion ball.”
One thing that might have accounted for the safer factor is the changes they've made to the specs on the bats in re: the length-weight differential on the metal bats. Follow me, if you will.
When I was a freshman in high school, the legal difference was minus 5, which meant that the bat could only weigh 5 pounds less than the length of the bat (i.e., length 32-weight 27). Later on, they changed it to lessen bat speed (and therefore danger for the pitcher and 3rd baseman) to minus 3 (33-30). I'm not sure how many times rules changes like this occurred, but that could have corrected the dangerousness of the metal bats throughout that study.
Also, for the record, I swung a 34-31, which is a fuckin' tree trunk, because I'm tough as shit.
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