From the Rose Law Group Reporter Growlery
By Phil Riske, managing editor
The problems with America’s Pastime have nothing to do with PEDs or number of Tommy John surgeries or length of games.
Ping!
Be within earshot of any baseball diamond hosting a college or Little League baseball game and you’ll hear it: Ping!
“It’s Metal Madness,” wrote Gary Klein in Los Angles Times.
Among objections to aluminum bats is mine, which asks: Would you train medical students to do surgery with a less-expensive pocketknife; or should a teenager drive a car with a top speed of 150mph?
The parents of Brandon Patch, a Miles City, Mont. American Legion baseball pitcher, sued the company in 2006. They said an “unreasonably dangerous” metal bat caused his death and Louisville Slugger failed to warn the user of the dangers. (Photo)
The use of aluminum bats below the professional level was spawned in the early 70s because they’re less expensive than wood bats, and they tend to smack the ball farther and at a sometimes-dangerous velocity.
“Professional baseball, as anti-metal as John Denver, has always used wood and may never switch. And baseball purists always have thought that aluminum bats should simply be canned,” Klein wrote.
Here’s the best summation: “The aluminum bat drastically alters the game. It’s not the game of baseball as we would like to think of it, ” said former USC and Olympic Coach Rod Dedeaux.
What amazes me is how well college hitters drafted into Major League baseball appear to adjust to wood bats, although their batting averages were falsely higher with aluminum bats. Would you, however, issue a medical license to a person who had never practiced with modern equipment and instruments?
I think the answer to all this is two-fold: Warren Buffett finances wood bats for all youth baseball, and manufacturers produce smaller, lighter wood bats for Little and Pony leagues.
It’s time ping be replaced with Crack!
