Hello Fans,
A new season is indeed upon us. In less than twelve hours, the A’s and Mariners will battle it out in Japan. Ahh yes, I can see it now, the ballparks filled, the cool designs freshly mowed into the outfield grass, shiny batting helmets, new leather mitts, and oh yeah, those damned maple bats. Or at least they should be damned. Major League Baseball approves all bats used in game action much in the same manner that your local softball park inspects bats. A bat deemed worthy receives a special dot noting the approval.
For decades and decades, all of the bats were ash. It’s hard, solid, and tough to break when swung correctly and ahead of the pitch. If you’re late, you risk losing your favorite weapon. Sometime in the late ’90s the maple bat came about. Supposedly, it is lighter and if the handle is thinned out, that results in more bat speed without giving up any reach to cover the outside part of the plate. Any bat can be broken by Major League pitchers. It doesn’t matter what it is. When an ash bat breaks, it is blown up similar to how a stock car is designed to dismantle its outer shell in a wreck to dissipate energy and protect the driver. Many times, most of the pieces barely get out of the dirt in front of home plate. However, when a maple bat breaks, a large, sharp piece of weaponry is typically flung fifty or more feet in who knows what direction. Everyone close to the game knows it. Fans. Players. League officials. We’ve seen not just pitchers dodging jagged barrels, but players and managers even get partially impaled or stabbed too. And fans are also at risk. And they don’t have to be for this reason. Obviously, balls go flying and entire bats slip sometimes. That is just part of the game. So why are the Big Leagues still Maple League Baseball?
This evening, I was watching the Angels take on the Giants in a Cactus League tune up game. In the top of the 9th inning, with the score tied at two, Santiago Casilla of the Giants delivered a pitch to Jorge Cantu of the Angels. The result was a soft liner that was easily caught by second baseman Emmanuel Burriss. And some unfortunate middle-aged woman also caught the barrel and half of the handle from Cantu’s bat. She was sitting behind the plate, an odd spot to be anticipating flying bat ends. Paramedics carried her out on a stretcher with minor bleeding and a major league bump somewhere on her body. Hopefully it was nothing too serious. Just ban those maple bats already and this sort of thing doesn’t happen. Or at least a heckuva lot less often. And if there’s a shortage of ash or some other excuse, baseball needs to be part of the solution to assist in producing more ash baseball bats. The sport is wealthy enough, powerful enough, and influential enough to dictate what kind of equipment is available. It’s ridiculous to have this unnecessary risk in addition to the ones that cannot be helped. It’s time for Maple League Baseball to return to being Major League Baseball.
Later Fans.
As a tree professional, I thought I should shed some light on the subject of the Ash vs. Maple debate. Like you, I prefer ash. In recent years, Ash have fallen victim to various insects and viruses. I wonder if the MLB switch to maple has to do with the fact that maple is more abundant than Ash, thus being cheaper. Ash tends to be slightly more brittle than maple which might support your observations of ash breaking to pieces. I haven’t been made aware of any studies on the breaking of ball bats, but as an avid baseball fan, it seems the majority of broken bats are maple! It could be as simple as having more maple bats to begin with. At any rate, I’m on the side of Ash. I just don’t see the advantage of maple.
Yeah those broken maple bats stand out more because of the action on the breaks. I think the switch was player driven due to a perceived idea that they are harder and can project the ball better. Both are still used, but I’m not sure which bats break a higher percentage of the time.