In recent years, as I watch MLB games on TV , it seems that bats are broken almost every inning. Often one can easily see that the bat breaks along diagonally crossing grain. If I were turning the bat on my lathe I would reject such wood. Is it that good wood is no longer available? In my younger days, (in the 40’s) most games were played without a broken bat.
Maybe someone from Hillerich and Bradsby will pick up on this question.
Tom
Replies
I know of atleast one manufacturer of wooden bats which uses Eastern Maple. They are very selective and reject any billet with the slightest defect. One would be hard pressed to find a find a billet with no runout, though. Maybe it has something to do with how the bats are made. If you take a chunk of wood and put it on the lathe, you could successfully turn a bat across the grain. However, if I use a spokeshave or drawkinfe to shape the bat, the tool will want to go with the grain, resulting in a stronger bat. Make sense?
Maybe players swing harder nowadays, too.
Chris @ flairwoodworks
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 4/6/2008 11:48 pm by flairwoodworks
When I was a boy, and such things were very important indeed, it was an article of faith that Louisville Sluggers were the best bats made. I forget now, but we always thought they were either ash or hickory.Joe
resulting in a stronger bat. Make sense?..
Sure does. Like making a 'self' archery bow.
As for a Baseball Bat I do not think we were hitting 100 MPH hard ball!
I'm a retired shop teacher. I only had 3 Delta lathes and more than 3 students per unit that wanted to make a bat. To accomodate, I stayed after school. We experimented with lots of species. Bottom line.....the harder the better until you get into brittle stage. Hard maple was the best. Typical ash is great for bows,like osage orange (hedge), but a bat does't flex to the extreme of a bow. We had good luck with Yew, and some ironwoods. Ironwood is nebulous. Probably 13 particular specioes are called ironwood. It all depends on supplier and actualy harvesting country.
I know less then nothing about baseball.
But I live near Cooperstown NY.
A couple of Bat manufacturers there-They both use Ash.
It's actually hard to get top notch Ash here because of them.
H
I love going to going to Cooperstown and the surrounding area-its beautiful. I had a friend in Sherbourne that used to supply me with white pine boards for windsor chairs. He retired a couple years ago unfortunately.
Question: which Ash do they use? Black or Yellow? Maybe another?
I really enjoy riving and shaping ash for windsor parts, its a nice wood to work with a drawknife and spokeshave. Good stuff.
dan
You know I'm so disconnected to Baseball I've never
even looked at the bats. I'm curious now, I'll get back to you. This area is beautiful. I spent ten years or so wandering around
the country only to end up fifty mile from where I started.
If your a cyclist at all, this place can't be beat.
Methinks the wood is the same, it's that the idjuts have not been taught the rules of grain direction. The kids playing ball today teethed on aluminum.
Maybe if they gave those bats more steroids, like the players, they wouldn't break so easily. More home runs, too.
;-)
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
It's not bad wood nor poor craftsmanship. It is evolving batting skills and technology. Todays hitters want their handles long and thin so that they get whip action when they swing. They also want the weight concentrated behind the impact area of the bat. It is good physics that allows them to hit harder and farther... BUT it makes the bats weaker and easily broken. The players accept this risk and treat the bats as disposable, ordering them by the dozens. When your major league career is worth several million dollars per year bat costs are pretty insignificant.
Ditto to what Bigfoot said. The Mariners announcers comment on this several times throughout the year.
Those custom bats don't seem to be doing the Mariners of Indians much good ;-( Maybe if the Owners paid by performance per game things would change.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
This one is hard to answer without a bat in front of me. In the EARLY 50's, we were instructed to hold the bat so that the label would be 'up' when we hit the ball. (The label was stamped on the softest / weakest part of the wood grain. This would orient the grain so that on contact, you were hitting with the annual rings vertically positioned.
So, one or more of five factors now come into play....
First: the manufacturers don't care where they stamp the label
Second: The shape of the handle is too thin for the weight/force being applied
Third: The players are definitely (chemically) stronger
Fourth: The players are doing it on purpose to get both the team and the fans excited
And... Fifth: The ball in use today is harder than the ball used from the 40's through the 80's.
SawdustSteve
100 mph pitch, 100? mph swing, that's a lot of energy and strain on a bat, and they tipically break where the bat is at about 1 1/2" diameter
There's enough youth in this world, how 'bout a fountain of SMART??!!
If they used split blanks instead of sawn, wouldn't that make the bat a lot stronger?
I don't know much about Turning and am
confused.
By split do you mean "Riven" or rather
split along the grain?
Regardless if your working in the round
what's the difference?
If you split wood, the grain will always run straight, whereas if it is machined, it could run any direction.Chris @ flairwoodworks
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Ah, that makes sense.
that maybe true but once you put the blank between centers on a spinning lathe, you will have grain run out at the point the bat tapers from 3.5 inches down to less than an inch at the grip. Riven or cut, the grain is only continuous in the center 1 inch. go figure.
dan
I don't see any differance
There's enough youth in this world, how 'bout a fountain of SMART??!!
The difference I think would be minimal grain runout in the bat, if it was split, vs when you saw a blank the grain can go wherever and make a weak spot. Every bat I ever saw break splits along a grain line. Gotta think if all the grain lines run down the axis of the bat it would be less prone to splitting...
possibly, but i'm not sure if they always do break down the grain
There's enough youth in this world, how 'bout a fountain of SMART??!!
I suppose breaking one by hitting too close to the handle could shatter it, and have not much to do with the grain. I was thinking more when the barrel breaks/splits, those are usually splits.
yes, it is a split along grain when the barrel gets damaged, but that is not very common.
There's enough youth in this world, how 'bout a fountain of SMART??!!
Baseball bat materials usage and design is partly a matter of tradition, and partly a matter of safety. With wood, you get breakage, but except for variations in the species, you pretty much know what you will get. Metal and synthetic bats all must be engineered. The materials and the engineering can add considerably the speed of the hit ball. Not only would this have the potential to change the game (more home runs), but also the faster the ball, the less reaction time and the more force if someone -- player or fan -- is hit. This is the subject of a nationwide debate in youth baseball, because some kids have been killed.
Louisville Sluggers are featured in FWW May 1983- also reprinted in "FWW on Spindle Turning." It was mentioned that Ash is mostly used because of its lightness, hickory was sometimes used. The company had its preferable supply of ash. In the article it was said that modern (1983) players preferred shorter lighter bats over the heavier clubs. The lighter bat has a thinner handle making it weaker. Lightness gives the speed to go after the trickier pitchers of today.
Babe Ruth used a 42 ounce bat..modern players are using 32 to 35 ounce bats. I turned a few bats from ash blanks from a local portable mill. The grain seemed large but I had no Slugger to compare it to.
Wooden bats come in different grades of lumber. Major league bats are made from the finest northern hardwoods. Northern woods are used because of the slower growth and tight rings. Bats breaking are not due to poor quality lumber. It's due to where the ball makes contact and the force. I don't know if Louisville uses riven lumber but the grain runs pretty straight.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I get the idea that MLB bats are made of ash, hickory, and maple (someone correct me if I'm wrong). The ones that came into vogue about two years that are painted black and have the gold "bat" symbol on them (the kind of bat that flies at night) - those ones seem to break a whole lot. Andruw Jones was using those last year with the Atlanta Braves and they seemed to break all the time. I think those black "bat" bats are made of maple. I'll bet the diameter of the barrel and lengths are spec'ed out by MLB, thus you've got wood species and different densities, tapers and grip sizes to mess with in order to achieve something that's light and controllable yet can achieve great bat speed in the strike zone and meet the ball with great force. I wonder if they could make a bat out of persimmon, like a golf club? I wonder if MLB would ever approve a composite material that's wood-based?
"I'll bet the diameter of the barrel and lengths are spec'ed out by MLB"
I'd take that bet because those specs are made by the individual players. The bat companies keep each players preferred bat specs on file. Of course the players will often change their preferences and the new specs will also be duly recorded. I'm not guessing... I've read several articles on this subject. They use a lot more types of woods than I would've expected and they paint a lot of the bats too. I think a lot of players like dark bats because they feel that the dark colors make it harder for pitchers and catchers to evaluate their swings.
I turned a bat once and looked up the MLB spec. and all I could find is that it cannot be any longer than 42" and the largest diameter cannot exceed 2-3/4" and that it must be made from a solid piece of wood. It did not specify the type of wood or any particular configuration for the taper, nor did it specify a min. diameter.
MLB does set a standard for bats, but there is some room for personel prefrence. A previous poster stated The Babe used a 42 oz bat, so did Ralph Kiner. A point of intrest Ted Williams beleived in a light bat , 33-34 oz. If you have a chace read his book, it's the best hitting book I have ever read. BTW, in MHO, the camcorder did more to help hitters since the game was founded than anything else. Regards!
Hey All,
I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions that seem to be floating around. I played a lot of ball at a lot of different levels and was picked upon at times for my refusal to use aluminum bats...... until an at bat or two! OK, here goes:1) Breakage.... is a combination of stronger players and thinner handles. As kids we used to love the "Gary Maddox" bat as it had such a thin handle. BUT it was very easy to break. We typically only had one or two bats so we would go to great lengths to avoid breakage, but it happened anyway. By eleven years old, we were plenty strong to break a bat. If you wanted to be the jerk for the day.... be the guy that broke the bat! For adults, it is a piece of cake. In the 1970's, Jim Rice snapped the head of his bat off on a check swing. But he was a big, strong guy that used a bat with a thin handle and a full barrel. 2) Cupping..... the first time I saw it was in 1979 or 1980. Definitely not new. As I recall it was a Japanese innovation. It will lighten the bat some, but I don't think too much of it.3) Performance..... the main reasons that I liked a wood bat were the typical.... tradition, the feel of the wood, the sound....... THE SOUND!.... An aluminum bat is superior in that it will make an average hitter a good hitter and so on. There is one area of performance that a wood bat beats an aluminum bat all day. It is the ability to pull, or whip a ball that is on the outside part of the plate and pull it around. The ball leaves a metal bat too quickly to do this, but with a wood bat, it can be done. It is also a good way to break the bat as well!4) Injuries:
Wood: Meet Steve Yeager, (Son of Chuck) catcher for the Dodgers in the 1970's -80's. He took the broken barrel of a bat to the throat in a game. He was in the on-deck circle when Bill Russell's bat shattered and hit Steve in the throat. Steve later invented the plate that used to hang down off of the catcher's mask. Metal: There is talk of banning it at college level and HS as the ball leaves the bat so fast it can pose a danger to the pitchers and spectators.Best,John
Edited 4/10/2008 8:25 am ET by Jmartinsky
John,
Excellent, well written answers to a lot of the bat questions. Thanks for taking the time to write and to lend your experience...
I'd like to point out that one reason high school, Little League and college ball is played with aluminum bats is economic. An aluminum bat will last a long time, but the big league budget for wood bats is huge. It's tens of thousands of dollars for every team every year. No amateur team could support that kind of expense for very long (of course the number of bat breakages wouldn't be as great either, due to the lower strength level of the players and fewer games played).
It is possible to engineer an aluminum bat to do whatever you want it to do, and some regulation has started to come into play after some deaths have resulted (as you pointed out) by the speed of the ball coming off the "trampoline" effect of highly tuned aluminum bats. They're now deadening the bats somewhat in order to make the game safer.
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
Dear Zolton,
Zolton! A fine Hungarian name........ no? I think that I have a cousin Zolton somewhere in the family tree. Thank you for your kind comments. Economics....... You are correct, there is always that factor! It could be that it may stabilize the overhead because the attrition rate is much less with aluminum bats. But my goodness! I've seen bats at over $200.00 a pop! If you get a few years out of it, then I suppose that there is some cost savings, but I think that it may come down to competition and expectations. At a HS level, unless there is substantial talent, then the team that uses wood will be at a disadvantage over the team that uses metal. The metal bats are lighter, have a much bigger sweet spot, almost no vibration, and will make a decent hitter out of less-than hitter. At a college level, I'm sure that Easton and others spend big bucks to get big schools to use their bats. As I'm writing this, it has occurred to me that someone else posted a comment about how the professional players were brought up on metal bats. Now that I think about it, the poster may of had a very good point. When I played Little League, metal bats were not allowed, so we didn't see metal bats until we were 13 or so. But by then we had learned how to hit. I'll bet that I broke more bast in Little League then I did at the upper levels, and I think that by then I had learned to lay off certain pitches and I had learned how to get the good part of the bat on the ball. On a wood bat, the "sweet spot" is maybe the size of a quarter. Hit it anywhere else, and the bat will let you know. If you hit a ball poorly enough, either the bat will break of you will swear that you just broke every bone in your hands! Both events, we learned to avoid pretty early on. Spring was the best time as hitting a ball off of the end of the bat on a damp 45 degree day was not something one wanted to repeat. A metal bat, by comparison has a huge "sweet spot" and offers very little feedback to the batter. Between the aluminum, the rubber grips and the batting gloves, I'm surprised there is any feedback at all! I was going to rant, but I will control myself!Best,John
John,
Thanks for not ranting! We need more of that around here..
Just as a side note to your experience in Little League and wooden bats, I live in the town where Derek Jeter grew up. I saw him play a few times in high school, and he always used a wooden bat even back then. I think he didn't want to get used to the "easy" way out, as he always knew he was headed to the Show. And, with a wooden bat, I seem to recall him hitting around .500 in high school.
It was pretty easy to see how far advanced he was on the diamond over the rest of the high school boys. He had huge range at shortstop and a terrific arm; very accurate with his throws to first even in high school. One in a million. He was also a pretty decent basketball player, too..
As to my name, I've heard that it is Hungarian. I wouldn't know much about that. I changed it to Zolton in 1975. At the time I was seeking the one thing that would torque my dad off the worst. And that was it..
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
Major league bats are restricted to 42" in length and 2 3/4" in diameter, college bats 2 5/8". At one time, hickory was used. Ash took over for it's lighter weight and flexibility. Maple has become more popular for strength and light weight. I think Barry Bonds has made maple famous. Supposedly, maple has less flex and a more powerful sweet spot. Ash bats will split when broken but maple can shatter. Any species can be colored. I don't know of any restrictions on species. It's mostly about weight and how the ball rebounds off the bat. Bats have to be solid wood, you may remember the "corking" scandals. Today, some are cupped on the ends. I live within ear shot of a high school field, I hate the sound of those aluminum bats, it just ain't right!MLB has put restrictions on bat makers. They have to pay a large fee and carry huge liability insurance, ($10,000,000?) It's put the little guys out of the business. I'm a drummer and our sticks are made of similar materials for some of the same reasons, weight to size, shock absorption, feel and strength. Species like ash, Japanese white oak, sugar maple and hickory are common. I'm sure other species could be used with good results. We are all rather particular when it comes to our sticks. You notice a very small difference in diameter, weight or length.Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
"I hate the sound of those aluminum bats, it just ain't right!" Amen!!!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"Today, some are cupped on the ends"
Yes I've read about that . It seems that many (most I think ) players want the cupping on the tip of their bats to prevent as much foul tipping as possible. This is something fairly new and somewhat difficult for the bat turners but they do what is asked of them.
From MLB:
1.10(a) The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 23/4 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.NOTE: No laminated or experimental bats shall be used in a professional game (either championship season or exhibition games) until the manufacturer has secured approval from the Rules Committee of his design and methods of manufacture.(b) Cupped Bats. An indentation in the end of the bat up to one inch in depth is permitted and may be no wider than two inches and no less than one inch in diameter. The indentation must be curved with no foreign substance added.(c) The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (c) above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game.(d) No colored bat may be used in a professional game unless approved by the Rules Committee.
So... as long as your bat is under 42 inches overall and has a maximum diameter of 2 3/4" you are okay. Most bats would fall into these parameters anyway and they are not very restrictive. So individual players are able to spec their own bat shapes within these rather generous parameters. That seems consistent with my posts to me. I know that several Cardinal players use dark bats (black or near black). Most also seem to have several bat types, perhaps for use in varied weather or batting situations or even when facing certain types of pitchers. I imagine that some switch hitters would use different bats depending on which side they bat from, for instance. Maybe the dark bats are used more during night games (though I don't know that... just seems possible).
Cupping the end of the barrel helps to lighten the bat without affecting the " sweet spot" which starts about 3 or 4 inches from the end.
Players today are much stronger (not all of them are juiced). The days of slender, lanky infielders and slightly overweight pitchers are gone for the most part. Bulking up, which many thought would be a hindrance for baseball players, has proven to be quite affective. With that comes increased pitching velocities and faster spin rotations making faster batter reaction times necessary. With less time to react it's harder to get your top hand through the hitting zone. That situation puts the grain orientation wrong. So, if it's anywhere near the handle.......snap.
Bat breakage isn't because players grab a bat and use it any way they want just because they're cheap. They know grain direction. They would much rather have a hit than a broken bat. But rather for the reason stated above.
Outlaw metal bats. It's like chewing tinfoil.
Paul
I agree with your line of thinking, but think Baseball could come up with an unbreakable bat if they wanted to..metal, plastics, or whatever. So, why don't they? They want the bats to break...creating excitement, action, etc., to give the crowd something to look at, plus time is money, and breaking bats are filling in time.....money.
From what I've seen so far, it seems like only a matter of time until someone gets hurt with a broken bat. Last year a minor league baseline coach got killed with a sharply hit liner and I've noticed this year at least some of the MLB teams are requiring baseline coaches to wear batting helmets.For the bats, I think they should try very thin laminations of hickory, carbon fiber mats and epoxy, and see if they still get the same performance and "thwacking" sound, with less breakage.
Changing the rules on the bat will change the game, so they don't change the bat or the ball.
If you allow composites or laminates, then a shrink wrap over a laminated core would be strongest. But again, it changes the game.
Softball has far less stringent rules on bats. They allow aluminum. In the early nineties, someone figured out that if you pressurize the cylinder with nitrogen, it gets stiffer, and the ball travels further. Recreational players were suddenly adding 50 to 100 feet their hits, and making it past the fence. Don't know if they banned them or not, but they sure changed the game.
I think that the sharp high velocity missile (broken bat) if it hit an infielder in the hed, could ealily penetrate the skull. Some day someone will be killed.
Tom
United States Patent 6471608
Breakage-resistant baseball bat and production thereof
US Patent Issued on 10/29/2002
Abstract:
A baseball bat which meets Major League specifications is fabricated from porous red oak wood. The pores of the handle portion of the bat contain an impregnation oil. The resultant bat provides greater ball-hitting power while having greater resistance to breakage. The process for producing the bat involves slow and uniform drying of individual hardwood billets under conditions which provide non-warped dry billets having 4%-8% H<!----><!---->2<!----><!---->O. The dry billet is then shaped to the bat configuration and impregnated with a penetrating oil while standing upright in a vacuum/pressure chamber.
I vaguely remember many years ago a player used to soak his bats all winter in a barrel of Linseed oil. It might have been Ted Williams.
So, why don't they? To many home RUNS!
Damn, youre smart! Im impressed.................. been doing any riding?
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
In addition to the many comments made by other posters- I have seen some of the big hitters interviewed and they talk about how the bats are custom made for them and then they'll take knives and sandpaper and thin them down even further to get the "perfect fit" in the hand.
Like golf clubs and tennis rackets- If you laid down a modern example to it's counterpart from the 50's 60's- you wouldn't believe it.
Dave
Tom
Baseball bats have changed in their design from the 40's. Most noticeably in the handle, which is much thinner, leaving the barrel of the bat thicker. All of this is designed to give the highest bat speed at impact. The weaker handle, and in relationship the thicker barrel, makes for more snapped bats than before. I've seen players break a bat on a checked swing. I'd also like to see a player try to break a bat from the 40's across his thigh the way they do today. I'd also bet that wood quality today is playing some role, too. Tom
Are they deep freeze treating bats? I've read how LN cryogenizes their planes for better performance. I wonder if they are does it make the ash/maple harder, yet more brittle?
Ken
Cryogenic treatments. THAT'S IT !!! But it's the microbevel they put on the bat afterwords, that weakens it.
LOL Maybe...but it reduces tear out on the baseball.... :)
Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
I know this is an old thread, but it's an interesting one.
I just found this while searching another forum:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080715/sc_livescience/thesciencebehindbreakingbaseballbats
Another interesting note in this maple bat story. Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs in the first round (a new record) of the All-Star home run derby with an ash bat. I heard a player the other day talking about how they liked the flex of an ash bat. I didn't really believe it until I saw a high definition slow motion replay of one of Hamilton's hits last night. The bat indeed had considerable flex.Josh
I know this is an old topic but I thought you might find this interesting.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3532059&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab7pos1
Dana
cool!
Thanks for posting!
Chaim
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