Cause of broken baseball bats uncovered

[-MIKE-]

The problem with the bats breaking more than normal is that they're not.

[Jack Stein]

They are breaking more than they used to break, and breaking in a more dangerous manner. Prior to 2000, almost all ML bats were ash. Now, about 50% of the bats are made of maple. Ash doesn't break as easily, and when it does, it tends to crack, whilst maple tends to snap, sending dangerous unguided wooden missiles about. This is what the people in the business have been saying. I don't follow baseball or any other dumb ass sport, so I only repeat what they are saying, and it makes sense.

Why do you say this is not happening?

I do know that EVERYONE in the major leagues knows ALL about grain direction, and so do the bat makers so the Government Forrest Service is wasting our money on this crap.

[-MIKE-]

Because there are other people with other statistics who say it's not really happening more. There aren't really stats on broken bats and if there are, now, it's too new a stat to have any value in a historic analysis.

A couple people get hurt and all of a sudden it's an epidemic, so MLB is on damage control. If they say, "it's no big deal, it's not happening any more than it used to" and some fan gets impaled, MLB gets sued for bazillions because they ignored a problem. If they acknowledge (even in self-creation) a problem and address it, they come across as a good guy.

[Tim Daneliuk]

dangerous manner. Prior to 2000, almost all ML bats were ash. Now, about 50% of the bats are made of maple. Ash doesn't break as easily, and when it does, it tends to crack, whilst maple tends to snap, sending dangerous unguided wooden missiles about. This is what the people in the business have been saying. I don't follow baseball or any other dumb ass sport, so I only repeat what they are saying, and it makes sense.

and so do the bat makers so the Government Forrest Service is wasting our money on this crap.

They're doing it For The Children (tm).

[dpb]

...

Don't know who's done what to look at tape of games for years and evaluate so won't comment too much on that aspect other than otomh I'd tend to agree w/ the latter as being likely to have merit.

I would expect any increase in the number of incidents over the years is also related to changes in the style of bats that are popular now vis a vis those of years ago. Much thinner handles and lighter bats are more in vogue than the "bottle" and heavier bats of yore as players look more for bat speed rather than weight as the goal.

I think unless evaluations and analysis include the physical dimensions as well as simply the material there are variables being ignored that are likely to be significant in any correlation and hence conclusions drawn w/o consideration of same are likely not valid.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Jack Stein" wrote

With an attitude like that, don't expect any invitations for championship celebrations with car burnings and window smashing.