Saturday, May 10, 2008

Maple Baseball Bats: Vlad The Impaler Would Approve

Baseball bats made of maple are popular with the players, but are far more dangerous than the traditional bats made of ash.

You're endangering the public, guys, as well as your fellow players and coaches. There are thousands of varieties of wood in the world, do experiments and find one that isn't brittle. Experiment with plywood and stabilized woods, too. Plywood would require changes to the rules of baseball, stabilized woods (even stabilized maple, which might solve the brittleness problem) probably wouldn't.

In the earliest days of baseball, players would carve their own bats, even. Who knows what sort of woods were used back then? Hickory, oak, Osage Orange? Try Apple. There's a world of wood out there to try.

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