wood bats vs. metal bats

Essay by stephenp04College, UndergraduateB+, November 2014

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

Pagendarm 3

Stephen Pagendarm

English 101-35

Ms. Eberhart

24 October 2014

Wood vs. Metal Bats

For the two hundred some year's baseball has been played, recreationally and competitively, the bat is the most identifiable part of the game. Until the 1970's the only type of bat used was the wood bat. Then, science advanced and the metal bat was created. Metal bats and wood bats are completely different objects, but yet the same thing.

Ever since their introduction in the early 1970's aluminum bats have dominated the youth and amateur adult baseball and softball markets. Ever year new designs and models are introduced, each one claiming to be better than previous models. Each new bat is made to have a wider sweet spot, more power, better feel, and higher performance. Almost everyone who has ever used an aluminum bat knows that they perform better than wood bats. It is pretty much an accepted fact that balls come off metal bats faster than they do wood bats.

In recent years the metal-vs-wood issue has become quite a controversial topic. Claims that higher batted ball speeds puts pitchers and infielders at higher risk for injury have led to calls for restrictions on bat performance. At times the controversy over metal versus wood bats has become quite heated, resulting in threats of lawsuits between bat manufacturers, safety watch organizations, and sports regulatory groups.

There were very lithe regulations on what metal bats were legal for use in the high school and collegiate game. Then, in 2012 they both went to the BBCOR experiment. BBCOR is a type of metal bat that is used much different than all the different types of composites, alloys, etc. that were previously used. The BBCOR bat has a much smaller sweet spot then the older BESR bats,