Posted on 10/20/2006 3:08:11 PM PDT by Cagey
TRENTON — Aluminum bats would need to stay on the rack for youth baseball games under legislation approved by an Assembly committee on Thursday. Under the bill, New Jersey would become the first state to allow only wood bats for baseball and softball games that include participants age 17 or younger. Supporters said baseballs fly off aluminum or titanium bats so fast that they often leave too little reaction time for young athletes still learning the game.
Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D-Middlesex, introduced the legislation after Steven Domalewski, 12, of Wayne, suffered a traumatic brain injury from a line drive that hit his chest hard enough to stop his heart. The boy’s father, Joseph Domalewski, testified Thursday.
“The line drive came back at him so fast that he could not react in time,” Domalewski said. “The attempt was made. He just didn’t have the time. A split second would have probably had him home, maybe with a bruise on the shoulder.”
Little League Baseball and Softball President Stephen Keener testified against the bill and said youth baseball would lose participants if the switch were made. He said Little League in recent years has banned on-deck circles, breakaway bases and headfirst slides, but found no conclusive evidence to show aluminum bats are more dangerous. “If this was, in our opinion, a safety issue, we would be leading the way for changes,” Keener said.
A 2002 Brown University study determined, however, that only 2 percent of balls hit with a wooden bat exceeded 100 mph as opposed to 37 percent of the hits off metal bats. Studies aside, supporters of the bill said it’s apparent just from the naked eye that a baseball flies off an aluminum bat faster than a wooden one. While New Jersey would be the first state in the country to ban aluminum bats for youth baseball games, several school districts in Illinois initiated a pilot program to test wooden bats. North Dakota high school teams also plan to switch to wooden bats in 2007.
Why not have them just go to bat with their hands?
Considering the number of injuries and deaths attributable to the use of metal bats in recent years, I have to support this idea. </s>
For a second I thought it said "ban metal BANDS."
I thought "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!"
if nothing else - make it so the "Ping!!!" goes away
Ping! lol
Is there any statistics to back that up? That is an interesting statement.
When a splintered wooden bat injures a child they'll have to all change sports I guess.
Bazooka PING!
I really have no opinion on this one way or the other, since I've been a strong opponent of any adult involvement in youth sports for years.
Metal bats dont kill people. Baseball players kill people.
I'm with you on that. I've been to a couple of college baseball games where the quality of play was excellent but that lousy ping sound just didn't work.
Yeah, and I had a great aunt who in nearly perfect health at age 100 tripped up a step, hit her head, and died from brain trauma a few days later. That does not justify banning steps.
This "if only ONE DEATH is prevented" bullshit risk assessment doesn't stop we will all be living in plastic bubbles soon.
The issue should be that you can't pitch inside with metal bats.
That and the fact that they go "ping" when you hit a ball.
Wow, they figured this out after thirty years of aluminum bats.
Ban people who ban things.
Wasn't that the reason they went to aluminum bats in the first place?
My 12 year old for the first time in his life felt what it was like to hit the sweet spot on his first wooden bat. After the connect, he just turned around with a big smile on his face and said, "Dad, why don't they use these on the field? That just felt so natural."
I agree about the 'ping'. It sounds synthetic.
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