Wood or Aluminum

Published on April 25, 2005 By philomedy In Sports & Leisure

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For as long as anyone can remember, there has been a debate over why, at every level other than professional baseball, aluminum bats are used much more frequently than wood. The debate has reached the government level in Montana, where the parents of a player killed by a ball coming off an aluminum bat have sought to have aluminum bats banned. Bat companies have cited various studies to show that there is nothing inherently dangerous about aluminum bats, and that statistically baseball is one of the safest sports in the world; basically, that what happened to this one particular player was a tragedy, but one that has an incredibly remote chance of happening again.

I will grant them this.

However, something has always rubbed me the wrong way about aluminum bats being used by players until they get to the pros. I mean, it's not cheating, since the rules clearly state that metal bats are acceptable. However, it is sort of like a more blatant, physical manifestation of the steroids that have come under congressional scrutiny of late. Baseballs clearly fly off metal faster and longer than they do off wood, which lead to more home runs, larger crowds, more revenue, and a bigger bottom line for whoever runs the team. The downside, of course, is that it's fake power, in perhaps a more devastating way than steroids are.

Steroids work within your body, they mess with your hormones, they make you stronger. The bat is its own entity, its own being. If you take a young baseball player who was a home run machine in college, with a metal bat, and transplant him to the major leagues, to a wooden bat, he may all of a sudden become a line drive/single hitter. This might certainly be devastating to the player in question's pocketbook. Does it not seem plausible that, out of fear of losing the power that metal bats artificially created, a young major leaguer would turn to steroids? Could that not be a motivation?

Most of the players caught under baseball's new "tough" steroid policies have been minor leaguers, most of whom have been relatively unknown. Perhaps they were trying to recapture the power that they once had, when they were on a team that sanctioned cheating in exchange for more power.

(I recognize the number of pitchers who also take steroids, and this obviously does not apply to them, since hitting would certainly not be their concern.)

Comments

Dr Guy

on Apr 25, 2005

Baseballs clearly fly off metal faster and longer than they do off wood,

That is incorrect. Aluminum is lighter than wood and there fore the hitters get more power behind the swing. That is why MLB does not allow it.

philomedy

on Apr 25, 2005

Aluminum is lighter than wood and there fore the hitters get more power behind the swing.

Causing the balls to fly further.

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