Considering that extremely skilled MLB pitchers are sometimes hit and injured by line drives, it seems disingenuous to suggest that a child is at fault when hit by a line drive.

Luckily, it’s quite rare that pitchers are hit in the chest. While about 2/3 of commotio cordis cases are sports related (including baseball, lacrosse, and hockey, as well as football), where balls or pucks are involved the vast majority of incidents involve catchers or goalies. With balls and pucks thrown AT catchers and goalies at speeds around 80mph in youth games, the risk is real if still rare.

For players and parents who CHOOSE to participate the best response is correct protective gear and, whenever possible, quick access to portable AEDs.

Steven in CO
lacrosse coach and player

First, let me say that I am sorry that your daughter lost her eyesight.

My daughter is in college and was hit by a foul ball while warming up.

Warming up doing what? There are two types of “warming up” allowed by NCAA and NAIA rules. The first deals with an on deck batter. The batter must remain in the designated area and must remain focused on the play on the field. I have been umpiring baseball and softball at the college level for 20 years and have never seen an on deck batter hit with a batted ball while the on deck batter was actually watching the game. By the way, if she was the on deck batter, what was she using to warm up with? Was it a wooden or metal bat?

The other “warm up” is for a player that is about to enter the game defensively. Mostly this is for pitchers. The rules are clear that when a pitcher is warming up, they must be in a confined or screened area and if not, they must have a “personnel protector” that can catch or deflect any ball that is hit their way. I have never seen a player that was guarded by someone be hit. Never.

They can kill some one.

So can the thrown ball. My mother has a baseball that killed her then fiance in a baseball game.

So can a batted ball off of a wooden bat:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290335,00.html

There making these bats so that the ball can go further

Factually false. The bats in both softball and baseball today have less of a COR than previous bats, and mimic a wooden bat more closely. What the governing bodies of softball have done is to raise the COR of the BALL, as well as make the seams on the ball lower. When pitched, because of the lower seams, the ball moves or breaks less. When hit, because of a higher COR, the ball travels further.

let the player generate their own bat speed not the bat.

The players do generate their own bat speed. The bat doesn’t jump off of their shoulder and into the hitting zone by itself. I suspect that you are talking about the “rebound” or the “whip” effect that some bats had. The rebound effect has been severely limited by rules that have been in place for a couple of years now. The end result is the required lower COR. The “whip” effect is a different matter. That too has been outlawed to some extent, and is most likely going to be further limited by proposed regulations on bat wall thickness being consistant throughout the length of the bat, and that the weight distribution of the bat resemble that of a wooden bat.

Once again, I am sorry that your daughter received an injury in a ballgame. All sports have risks associated with them and those risks can be minimized, but never eliminated.

Yet once again, I would ask what bat your daughter used to hit with? Was it a high performance bat? Was it a wooden bat? Or was it a metal bat with lower perfomance? The reason I ask is that if you are or were so concerned about the safety of players when “metal” bats are used, surely you didn’t allow your daughter to ue one for fear of causing injury to another player, right?

While I agree with many of your points, it is your final conclusion with which I disagree as it is incomplete.

It is simple folks, they are out to protect their profit, not the kids.

Heaven forbid that a company should be out to protect profits. Next thing you know people will be demanding to be paid when they go to work.

However, to lay this all at the feet of bat manufacturors is wrong. It is not just about “profits.” It is about little Johnny hitting the ball. Leagues buy middle of the road performance bats because of the cost savings to the league. A wooden bat in youth leagues will need to be replaced, on average 4 – 6 times a year due to it being broken. A middle performance bat will last 2 – 3 seasons (if not longer.) There are cost benefits to the league to use metal bats.

The higher performance and higher cost bats (the $400 models you speak of) are purchased by PARENTS so that their son (or daughter) can hit more balls, and hit those balls farther. Their son or daughter is now a superstar at the age of 10 and many parents believe that college scouts will be looking for their little darling at a youth rec league game.

At that point it is not only about profits by the bat manufactuors, but greed and pride by the parents.

Let’s review their third-party research claims a little closer.

1) Claim – “Since 2003, metal bats used in high schools and colleges have been scientifically regulated so that the speed of the batted balls off metal bats is comparable to that of the best major league wood bat. This standard — known as BESR — has been adopted by the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations.”

Since January 1st, 2006 (when the NCAA was sued by the maker of the Baum Batting Machine – BESR), the bat manufactures could self regulate until May of 2006 and then they were required to have there bats tested on the new and improved “ASTM High-Speed Air Cannon for baseball and softball bat testing”. The Air Cannon was the same way that the bats were tested in the 1990’s when the bats were being juiced and the NCAA wanted to make changes to slow down the bats. Thus came the more accurate Baum Batting Machine.

With the Air Cannon, the bat is placed in a stationary position and has baseballs fired at up to 200mph, which is not the speed that the baseballs are shot at the bat for testing. This test is not a true collision of a bat and ball and does not simulate actual field conditions.

2) Claim – “Bats used at the Little League level are governed by the BPF Standard which dictates that the rebound effect of the batted ball off non-wood bats cannot exceed the rebound effect of the batted ball off a wood bat. These standards (both BESR and BPF) are presented to bat makers which they must follow.”

The BPF or Bat Performance Factor for Little League baseball bat is actually set at 1.15 BPF. Anyone care to guess what the 1.15 stands for? I believe that the 1.15 means that the metal bat can out perform a wooden bat by 15%, thus the 1.15.

Now the real story here is that Little League made a rule change back in 2005 requiring the leagues to make the change from the standard of the time, 1.50 BPF (50% better performance then wooden bats), to the 1.15 BPF by the year 2007. Then for some reason, the 2006 Little League rules stated that the bats did not need to be changed to the 1.15 BPF until 2009.

When Little League was asked why the change, they stated it was an error in the 2005 rules but then why not send out a notice to the leagues about the mistake? The statement of “cannot exceed the rebound effect of the batted ball off a wood bat” is false.

3.) Claim – “A 2007 study on the “Non-Wood vs. Wood Bats” by Illinois State University concluded that “there was no statistically significant evidence that non-wood bats result in an increased incidence of severity of injury.”

Another half-hearted attempt to show that metal bats are as safe as wooden bats. This study was done over the same season of high school baseball teams. “Thirty-two IHSA schools submitted data on wood bats from spring 2007 baseball games, and 11 of the 32 reported data for games played both with wood and non-wood bats.” HUH? Only 11 metal teams reported compared to 32 wooden teams? Nice ratio. Clearly not enough data to prove their point.

Did you know that the injury data complied from the NCAA is a voluntary reporting with only a select percentage of schools reporting each year? This also fits in with the below comment number 4.

4) Claim – “In 2002 (before the current standards were implemented), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stated “Available incident data are not sufficient to indicate that non-wood bats may pose an unreasonable risk of injury.” (April 5, 2002) Obviously, since then, new regulations have been put in place to reduce the performance ability of bats even more.”

From the CPSC report of April 5, 2002, the paragraph above the “Available incident data…” line states the following:
“Data from other sources are also not clear or detailed enough to determine that an increase in injuries has occurred with an increase in bat performance. Injury reports from the NCAA are not complete, but the data that do exist do not show a significant increase in injuries to pitchers during the 1990’s. The Little League does not keep track of injuries as such, but rather of secondary medical insurance claims. THIS INFORMATION MAY OR MAY NOT REFLECT ACTUAL INJURIES.”

The reason that the injury data back in 2002 was not sufficient was the fact there was no accurate injury data being kept. Voluntary reporting by NCAA, secondary insurance claims by Little League will not give anyone a good indication of the injuries sustained.

Then to top it off, they are comparing NCAA World Series to a MLB regular season. They state, “As you can see, it’s virtually identical — with different types of bats.” Elite college teams making the NCAA World Series can hit the same as MLB players over a course of a season? Put wooden bats in the NCAA players hands during the NCAA World Series and metal bats in the MLB players during their season and then let’s compare notes.

Even their website shows San Diego Padres pitcher Chris Young sitting on the mound with a bloody nose and the wooden bat in the background behind him. Do you think Chris would be sitting if the ball was hit with a metal bat in that MLB game?

It is simple folks, they are out to protect their profit, not the kids. When you can charge $400 for a metal bat and $80 for a wooden bat and both cost about the same to make, which product makes them more money. Metal or wood?

The Don’t Take My Bat Away Coalition appreciates interest in this baseball story. Needless to say, we take exception to any comments about any safety concerns on the issue of wood vs. non-wood bats. Any implication that using today’s non-wood/metal bat presents a safety issue has NO validity. The following third-party research below supports that conclusion:

1) Since 2003, metal bats used in high schools and colleges have been scientifically regulated so that the speed of the batted balls off metal bats is comparable to that of the best major league wood bat. This standard — known as BESR — has been adopted by the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

2.) Bats used at the Little League level are governed by the BPF Standard which dictates that the rebound effect of the batted ball off non-wood bats cannot exceed the rebound effect of the batted ball off a wood bat. These standards (both BESR and BPF) are presented to bat makers which they must follow.

3.) A 2007 study on the “Non-Wood vs. Wood Bats” by Illinois State University concluded that “there was no statistically significant evidence that non-wood bats result in an increased incidence of severity of injury.”

4.) In 2002 (before the current standards were implemented), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stated “Available incident data are not sufficient to indicate that non-wood bats may pose an unreasonable risk of injury.” (April 5, 2002) Obviously, since then, new regulations have been put in place to reduce the performance ability of bats even more.

One other point to consider: In the 2006 College World Series (where a metal bat by today’s standards was used), the batting average in all games was .277, the average number of home runs per game was 0.82, and the average number of runs per game per team was 5.2. In the 2006 American League season (where a wood bat was used), the batting average in all games was .275, the average number of home runs per game was 1.12, and the average number of runs per game per team was 5.2. As you can see, it’s virtually identical — with different types of bats.

Finally, I encourage you to visit our website (www.DTMBA.com) for more information on this “wood vs. non-wood” bat topic.

Sincerely,

Mike May
Don’t Take My Bat Away
6650 West Indiantown Road — Suite 220
Jupiter, FL 33458
p: 561.427.0657
c: 561.317.6111
mmay@sgma.com