Seems there's concern being expressed in baseball over the choice of bat-making wood
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"When an ash (or the rare player who still used hickory) bat breaks, it loses a lot of the swing energy and breaks into 3-4 pieces. Yes, the largest might travel, but it usually flies closer to the baseline the batter is facing than it does to the pitcher.
The maple seems to break into two pieces, and shoot much closer to straight up the middle, and with a larger piece of wood."
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?s injury should force bat policy change
(This is certainly my first ever baseball-related post, probably the only one)
There is also a lawsuit against Little League Baseball and the maker of metal bats. A pitcher was hit with a ball that was hit too hard. The force stopped his heart and he suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen for a few minutes.
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guess all bats should be banned or they should have a safety cage around them.
Or equip the players so they look like "duh generation" bullriders in the PBR.
A nation of wusses?
On a similar note: I've gotten two, unrelated calls in the last few weeks from friends in the business offering work. It seems that O&G lease brokerage firms are searching for older landmen in their 50/60's, at top dollar, because the current crop of college degreed, "certified landman" simply aren't doing the job without the necessity for a lot of expensive cleanup of their work prior to drilling.
Okay maybe I can see an issue with the maple bats, but the little league lawsuit is just plain wrong.
He wasn't playing a Little League game, only that Little League had approved the bat for use.
The Police League isn't named in the suit hmmmmm wonder why.
Sports Authority because they sold a legal product.
These metal bats have been patented since 1924 and in mainstream use since the early 1970s, with numerous studies finding no fault with them
I'd be more interested in if any adult at the game was CPR qualified. What happened between the time he was hit and he received medical attention? His Dad was present, what did he do? Did this boy own a similar bat? Which would mean his parents approved the bat also.
It's sad this boy has had this happen to him, but all sports have dangers and this could have happened just as easily with a wooden bat. Line drives hurt when you don't catch or deflect them.
Really it is a sad statement on our country that our liable laws have gotten so out of hand.
Interesting. On a related note, my dad and his neighbor were approached about drilling on their lands. They don't get royalties because they are on a railroad section, but they are pushing to make sure that damage payments are fair. Dad is also pushing that if a road is put in, it needs to be paid for as a lease, not a one-time payment. We'll see how that goes.
Don't know how it is in your state, but in Texas the mineral estate is dominant and a surface owner without minerals doesn't have much legal say about what is done. Basically, a surface owner will almost never prevail in keeping a mineral owner from enjoying the rights of ownership of the mineral estate, even it his house is located smack dab in the middle of it, although most companies will bend over backwards to remunerate/placate a surface owner.
A good thing to go for if you can get it, and if they indeed do drill and establish production on his land, or it is included in a producing unit, there is a good chance he could get it here in Texas. The roads on a lease here are always maintained by the production company until production ceases and, in the rural past were usually a welcome addition on most tracts ... although as absentee city ownership becomes prevalent (particularly those owners from Northern states with different attitudes about land ownership than your average old time Texan), and tracts become smaller, things are changing.
they should be making bats outta piss elm, beleive me the stuff is hard to split, when I was a kid we burned it for firewood and I know it does not split well, it's real stingy. ross
Why does that matter? Drilling for oil is a private practice as far as I know, its not a public domain application. Now if the drilling is in the public domain section of the railway that would be another thing, but I think that only extends 8 feet on either side. i find it hard to believe they can put a pump that close to the railway
It's probable that they no longer teach American history in this country? :)
Most railroads in the US are private companies, and their tracks are located on land owned by them in fee simple. Railroads were historically given huge swaths of land on either side railways as an incentive to extend their reach and open up our frontiers to settlement and commerce.
While the surface of a good part of that land has been sold to a third parties down through the years, the minerals were most often reserved in those transactions.
AAMOF, Union Pacific Railroad still remains one of the largest mineral owners in the US, particularly out West where they own entire sections of land that alternate on either side of the tracks, in a checkerboard manner, for hundreds, if not thousands of miles (IIRC, across 23 states), and they have an entire department that deals with nothing but the leasing of those retained mineral rights. BTDT.
Many states awarded their own "land grants" to encourage railroads and the economic benefits they brought to an area. The Texas and Pacific got
5,173,120 acres of _land grants_ from Texas between 1873 and 1881 to build their railroad in Texas.
AAMOF, the Texas Pacific Land Trust is still the largest _private_ landowner in the State of Texas and generates much income from its mineral rights thereunder.
OK, makes sense--KS was in the US act. In fact, home town was "end of the line" for nearly 30 years just couple of miles from Indian Territory (OK) in the panhandle which is why the town is where it happens to be...that was the old Rock Island, now part of the Union Pacific.
Umm, I don't think you understand here. "Railroad section" doesn't mean railroad right-of-way. Back in the late 1800's, when the transcontinental railroad was being built, in order to entice the railroads to build, the government deeded every odd section (640 acres, or 1 square mile) plot to the railroad for 20 miles on each side of the railroad. The Union Pacific was the beneficiary of that land give-away (actually, it was a legitimate deal for a risky business venture). In the ensuing years, the railroad sold those sections, but retained the mineral rights. My Dad's place is a
1/2 section of one of those railway parcels. The mineral rights reside with the railroad and they have the right to drill on that land, but must make reasonable compensation for damages to the land where they drill. In order to access the site they want to drill, they will have to make a road through an additional part of Dad's place.
As a side note, the railroad used to provide 2% of the royalties to land owners. Some stupid people took the railroads to court complaining that 2% wasn't enough. Court ruled in the railroad's favor and the railroad changed its policy to 0%. Great move on the part of the land-owners that.
OTOH, one could question if those mineral rights should reside apart from the land ownership for more than 1 century, but that's a different discussion.
At one time, my grandfather, who had a farm in TX indicated that there was a limit to the amount of time that mineral rights could be separated from the land ownership (20 years?). Do you know if that is the case, or just a bit of verbal lore he picked up somewhere. His father was in the oil business in South Texas before they moved to the Wichita Falls area in the early 1900's.
Not in Texas ... the mineral estate is considered a "separate" estate" and can be severed from the surface in perpetuity. It is also the "dominant" estate in Texas, in that the surface owner can't prohibit the severed mineral estate owner from exercising the enjoyment and rights of ownership of his property.
This is one of the reasons that an independent landman can prosper in a state like Texas. Buying Oil, Gas & Mineral leases from the rightful owner(s) must be based on extensive, and expensive, title/deed record search, which is particularly tough when much of the mineral estate has been severed from the surface for many years (due to oil exploration/production going back to the late 19th century), and then taking into account the changes in ownership from land sales, deaths, wills, and intestate "descent and distribution".
It is not unusual in some areas for it to be necessary to get signature on one lease from literally hundreds of heirs on a tract the size of a town lot, and it just gets worse with time.
That said, and what your grandfather may have been referencing ... there are special circumstances on state owned lands that do indeed require reversionary rights, one of them being a 20 year period, but that might have changed in the courts since I was in the "bidness", some 22 years hence.
In my home state of Louisiana, basically based on Napoleonic Code, no separate mineral estate can be created, and except when under lease/production the mineral rights remain with the surface, at the cessation of which they automatically revert to the current surface owner.
I'm not aware of any basic changes in those areas in these two states. Since most landmen are generally conversant with both states out of necessity, the differences can present interesting challenges.
For instance, Texas is a "dresser drawer deed" state, and Louisiana is a "race to the courthouse" state. In Texas you do not absolutely need to record a deed/lease/instrument to land to have a superior title; in Louisiana, you better have your deed/lease/instrument recorded or someone may beat you to the parish courthouse ... the latter can make for some wild west scenarios when lease crews are competing, on the ground, to put together drilling blocks in a hot area. :)
I had a large lease crew on the ground for almost two years back in the early 80's in South Eastern Colorado (Lamar) and we bought beaucoup leases from Union Pacific in that area. We used to go to KS on the weekends, to a bush track to watch the quarter horses races and pass a good time. :)
The Interstate highway system sure put an end to many of these "railhead" towns. There are still a number of "railroad hotels" in small towns in Texas and may of them were being restored in this last period of prosperity.
There is one in particular in Corrigan, TX, on US59, that I pass often on the way to SWMBO's home state (AR) that is neat to visit ... a completely wooden structure with 10', wraparound porches and railings, straight out of an old western movie. :)
Too bad so many of the regional differences in this country are disappearing with the onslaught of the Wal*Mart's and chain restaurants.
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