Aluminum Bats In Baseball

In the game of baseball today athletes are considerably bigger, stronger and faster then in years past. Along side these strength changes in the game are changes in technology as well. Modern baseball bats are changing the game dramaticly for better or for worse depending on who you talk to. Excluding professional baseball, aluminum bats are being used at every other level from t-ball to collegiate baseball and more and more injuries are occuring from them. With injuries on the rise so too are players statistics (batting averages, home runs, runs scored per game, etc..) which gives players a false sense of talent. Injuries are occuring and players are developing bad habits. Aluminum is ruining the game and must be banned.

Cracker Jacks, a warm summer breeze, a hot dog in one hand and an ice cold drink in the other. Silence and then screams of excitement as I hear the crack of a wooden bat. Today that sound would be the ping of an aluminum bat. Aluminum bats were first intoduced in 1970 as a cost saving measure for little league and college athletics (Science Daily). Todays bats are made out of specialized alloy which creates a trampoline-like effect when making conta

Over seventeen deaths from 1991-2001 have occured in baseball games (Acosta). Most deaths were related to head trauma sustained when a player was struck by an aluminum batted ball. As well as the countless injuries that have occured from less reaction time and ridiculously hard hit balls for pitchers and fielders are the inflated statistics to the game. From 1997-2001 the NCAA indicates that batting averages (the percent chance a hitter will get a hit when he steps up to the plate) are up from .294 to .301, the amount of home runs hit per game are up from .78 per game to .94, and the amount of runs scored by each team per game is up to 7 from 6.18 (Kelly). Marshall McDougal, a player at Florida State University, hit for an average of .419 with 28 homeruns and this is only in 70 games palyed (Sport Journal). I'd like to say these numbers are unusual but are they are not. Most college baseball players are putting up ridiculously high statistics like Marshall since the introduction of aluminum into the game. In one game Marshall hit six homeruns and drove in sixteen runs by himself (Kelly). One might hear these numbers and think the pros would love this kid and he'd definetly be a 1st round pick. Nope, he was picked in the 26th round, and in his first year with a wooden bat he hit only .248 with 1 homerun (Kelly). College players are finding it very difficult to make the adjustment from aluminum bats to wooden ones once they hit the professional ranks. This can be shown perfectly by a study conducted at the Baumbat Co. in which it follwed 90 division 1 players through their senior college seasons to their first full season witha wooden bat at the professional level. The palyers batting averages went from .339 in college to .232 in the professional ranks. Their homeruns per atbat went from 1 homerun every 25 at bats to 1 homerun every 74 at bats. Aluminum bats allow more mistakes to be made by hitters while batting. However, even with hitters making batting mistake they can still rack up the hits because of extemely hard hit balls off of aluminum bats. These harder hit baseballs are difficult to field and react to by opposing players. This allows hitters to get away with not properly learning how to read the different pitches a pitcher is throwning and the fundamentals of the baseball swing. Dave Hudgens the hitting instuctor for the Oakland Athletics suggests that aluminum bats lead to young hitters developing long swings which drag through the strike zone. This means that a player takes a long time to finish is swing.

Some topics in this essay:
Baumbat NCAA, Jim Darby, Baumbat Co, Oakland Athletics, BatterSaaaaawing Batter, Worth TPX, Daily Todays, Journal I'd, Cracker Jacks, Science Daily, aluminum bats, aluminum bat, wooden bat, wooden bats, batting averages, batted ball, false sense talent, baumbat co, professional level, bad habits, sense talent, bat professional level, ball aluminum bat, developing bad habits, wooden bat professional,