By R.J. Anderson
On Wednesday, March 14, the New York City Council voted 40-6 to ban the use of metal baseball bats by the city's public high school teams. With the bill set to go before Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who could veto it, and a strong possibility that metal bat manufacturers would sue before the ban would take effect next fall, the issue remains very much up in the air.
In light of the New York City Council decision, Athletic Management has gathered stories and research examining debates on whether to ban metal bats at various league and state levels across the U.S.
If the bill passes, New York City will join a handful of other places prohibiting the use of metal bats. For example, in North Dakota, this spring will mark the first season the state's high school teams will swing wood bats exclusively.
Dave Carlsrud, Assistant Executive Secretary of the North Dakota High School Activities Association (NDHSAA) says the metal bat ban was decided on by the state's baseball coaches. Carlsrud says the coaches based their decision on safety reasons and also because of concerns about the durability of metal bats in cold weather.
This spring, wood bats will also be making a comeback at a number of high schools in Illinois, as the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) will take part in a five-conference feasibility study funded by the NFHS. In the study, participating schools will be given 18 wood bats in a variety of sizes to use in conference games.
According to an article in the NWI Times, after each contest, coaches from participating schools will report on the bats' effect on run production, when and how they break, and any batted-ball injuries.
"All they want to do ... is somehow track the vulnerability of a wood bat," Dave Beezhold, Head Baseball Coach at Illiana Christian, told the NWI Times. "Some of the manufacturers talk now (that) because of the composites that they're twice as durable as previously. This is part of the reason they're selling this whole pitch to the IHSA. And the IHSA almost wants to tell them, 'Prove it.'"
Easton spokesperson James Darby says The New York City Council decision is largely based on an emotional response to a catastrophic incident that occurred in New Jersey in June 2006 when a Little League pitcher took an aluminum bat-propelled line drive off his chest, went into cardiac arrest, lost oxygen to his brain, and lapsed into a coma. The brain damage that resulted left the 12-year-old blind and unable to speak. As a result of the incident, New Jersey lawmakers are considering making their state the first to ban metal bats from all youth baseball, including high school.
In response to claims that metal bats are more dangerous than their wood counterparts, Darby argues that today's metal bats are manufactured to conform to Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) standards mandated by the NCAA, NFHS, and other governing bodies. The BESR standards are a system of measurements which must be low enough so that the ball rebounds off a metal or composite bat at a maximum speed in the mid-90s—the same speed a ball hit on the sweet spot of a wood bat would produce.
"We make them [bats] to specifications the associations set," Jim Darby, a spokesman for Easton Sports, a leading bat maker, told The Associated Press. "The NCAA, Little League, the high school federation—the groups that give us our marching orders—they all keep injury statistics. He [Councilman James Oddo-the bill's main sponsor] offers no data, no science, almost nothing in return. He just accuses them of being wrong. How do you base public policy on that?"
Easton isn't the only group unhappy about the New York City Council's decision. Little League President and CEO Stephen D. Keener said in a statement, "This unnecessary legislation clearly was not supported by factual data and will ultimately harm the baseball programs of the city's high schools."
USA Baseball’s Youth Committee issued statement on non-wood bats addressed some specific concerns in defending their use of metal bats. Taking into account the new BESR standards, Little League reported that in 1992, there were 146 injuries from batted balls. In 2004, after the new standards were in effect, there were only 26 injuries. In both cases, they said there were about 2.6 million players compiling 160 million at-bats.
As for costs associated with switching to wood, according to The New York Times, the New York City Council estimated it would cost the city's public high schools $253,500 to replace 5,070 metal or metal-composite bats used by 169 baseball teams, and $67,600 a year thereafter to replace broken wood bats. The bill’s sponsors said they would ask donors to defray the costs for private and parochial schools.
Here is a statement from Easton's Darby:
Aluminum bats have been a part of amateur baseball for more than 30 years. Two generations of ball players have honed their skills using them. There are advantages to aluminum. They do not break, and they are consistent every time on the field. They are more forgiving than wood.But today’s aluminum bats do not hit the ball harder or faster than wood bats. They can’t, and they don’t, because for five years the NCAA and the NFHS have required non-wood bats to be independently tested and certified as meeting the BESR (Ball Exit Speed Ratio) measurements.
With BESR bats, the performance of aluminum bats was changed. In the late 1990s, aluminum bats were more powerful than wood. But leagues mandated changes. Today’s aluminum bats are heavier, have smaller barrels, and have a mandated maximum exit speed of 97 mph on the NCAA test—the same exit speed as Northern White Ash Wood bats.
The baseball community—USA BASEBALL, NCAA, NJCAA, NFHS, PONY, BABE RUTH, AMERICAN LEGION, LITTLE LEAGUE, and others—broadly support the use of aluminum bats. These leagues and associations monitor their use—and the safety of their game.
Some people, in the name of safety, call for banning aluminum bats in baseball. This is wrong. No league, association, or researcher has found that baseball played with aluminum bats is unsafe, or potentially more unsafe, than baseball played with wood bats. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission conducted research on this and the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research continues to study baseball safety—they found baseball, played with aluminum bats, is safe.
The bottom line is that baseball played with today’s BESR certified bats is as safe, if not safer, than baseball played with wood bats. That is what research, statistics, and safety data report for all levels of the game.
R.J. Anderson is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. He can be reached at: rja@MomentumMedia.com.
All comments will be reviewed before they are posted.