I'm writing in response to a story in the May 2, 2008 online edition of The Review titled, "Delaware alumnus swings Into business" about local businessman Troy O'Neal who operates BullyBats, Inc., a company which produces wooden baseball bats. In the second sentence of the story, there was a reference to aluminium bats being "unsafe." The claim that today's metal bat is "unsafe" has no validity.
Third-party research has been done which supports that conclusion - since 2003, metal bats used in high schools and colleges have been scientifically regulated so the speed of the batted balls off metal bats is comparable to that of the best major league wooden bat. This standard has been adopted by the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations.
A 2007 study on the "Non-Wood vs. Wood Bats" by Illinois State University concluded "there was no statistically significant evidence that non-wood bats result in an increased incidence of severity of injury."
In 2002 (before the current standards were implemented), the Consumer Product Safety Commission stated, "Available incident data are not sufficient to indicate that non-wood bats may pose an unreasonable risk of injury."
Obviously, since then, new regulations have been put in place to reduce the performance ability of bats even more. One other point to consider - in the 2006 College World Series, where a metal bat by today's standards was used, the batting average in all games was .277, the average number of home runs per game was 0.82, and the average number of runs per game per team was 5.2.
In the 2006 American League season, the batting average in all games was .275, the average number of home runs per game was 1.12, and the average number of runs per game per team was 5.2.
The two sets of statistics are virtually identical - with different types of bats.
Mike May Director of Communications for SGMA mmay@sgma.com
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