Tantalizing Tuesday 8/18: The Sound of Ping

[Kingdom]

Who doesn't enjoy the sound of -ping- while watching college baseball or the little league world series (what, you enjoy watching the little league world series? you perverted freak!) . You can't mistake the noise and you certainly can't picture the college world series without someone, let's say a guy like Dustin Ackley, mashing the ball while making a gigantic ping sound in doing so. Maybe it's the best description of amateur baseball. Ping.

Ever wonder what the major leagues would be like if they used aluminum bats? Who knows how far homeruns would go, even for the guys not using performance enhancers. Never would a bat break, I don't think even Raul Mondesi would try to break one over his knee after striking out. You can wonder, you can fantasize, but be thankful we don't use them. This past weekend might serve notice to the fact that even college baseball might want to consider eliminating the use. How might Hiroki Kuroda be if the line drive came from the aluminum bat? As is, thankfully he's going to be fine.

I'm sure you're ready say it doesn't truly matter. But I'd like to point out wooden bats do break. Aluminum bats do not break. And when's the last time a major league player was killed from a line drive?

On a July night three years ago, a line drive rocketed off a metal bat and smashed into the left temple of Brandon Patch, an 18-year-old American Legion pitcher in Montana. Within hours, he was dead.

In April 2005, a line drive off a metal bat slammed into the temple of Bill Kalant, a 16-year-old high school pitcher in suburban Chicago. The ball traveled “with laserlike speed,” said Skip Sullivan, Kalant’s coach at Oak Lawn High School. Kalant was rushed to a hospital adjoining the field, where an emergency-room doctor told his parents, “He is on the cliff of death.” He made it through after being in a coma for two weeks and having brain surgery. He has had to learn how to brush his teeth again, how to tie his shoes again, how to walk again

At a Police Athletic League game last month in Wayne, N.J., a line drive off a metal bat struck the chest of Steven Domalewski, 12, knocking him down and stopping his heart for a few minutes. He was revived on the field and taken to a hospital, where he was put in a medically induced coma, placed on a feeding tube and hooked to electrodes to stimulate his brain. He is still in a coma.

I think you might be ready to say we should ban pitchers from throwing inside, in fear of being like the Boston Red Sox and drilling someone in the head. That is frightening, but it's part of the game. A guy like Justin Morneau had a crappy season from the effects after being hit in the head, Corey Koskie retired, Ryan Church fell out of favor with the mets and was dealt to a stable organization. How does that really compare to a coma or death?

[missionhockey21]

Very interesting post Zito. To be honest I really didn't know there has been actual deaths due to the aluminum bat but it really doesn't surprise me at all. It's amazing we live in an age where the purity and sanctity of the game is supported by the large majority but we let the youngest players of the game use more dangerous and less traditional equipment than the majors. What next, wearing shorts in the field? ... scratch that.

[catman]

There has been talk over the past couple of years that major league baseball will supply wood bats to high schools and colleges. It is estimated that it would cost each organization around $50K annually to do so.
Supplying bats to high schools and colleges would do 2 things.
1. It would eliminate these accidents.
2. It would allow the professional scouts to evaluate talent easier. Can a hitter used to hitting with an aluminum bat make the adjustments to wooden bats? Bat speed is better with aluminum bats and there is not a "sweet-spot" per se with an aluminum bat. Hitters can handle inside pitches as easily as they handle those on the outside corner.
Pitchers who can pitch to hitters using aluminum bats and get outs regularly are likely to be able to pitch to those with wooden bats and some who have bad stats will do much better against the wooden bats.
One of the drawbacks to using wooden bats is that they break. If manufacturers were given the job of making bats that would not break as easily, I'm sure they could solve this problem as well. Ty Cobb was said to have used the same bat for 3 years, without it breaking or chipping.

[realmofotalk]

We already know what alumimum bats can do for college hitters. Eric Munson has 6 million reasons to be thankful for *ping*.

Supposedly, the more durable maple bats don't break as often as ash bats, but when the maple bats break, the shards are more dangerous than that of the ash ones. It's like defending yourself against bamboo sticks.