Tin Vs Lumber

Tin vs. Lumber

There has been great change throughout time in the game of baseball. One of the biggest changes in the college game we have seen is the baseball bats used. Before 1974, in the NCAA, the only bats used were wooden. Since then, mostly metal or aluminum bats have been used. This has caused great change in the college game, some say for better, some say for worse.

For as long as I have been around aluminum bats, there has always been the question of safety. Each year we hear about a college pitcher being injured from a line drive off of an aluminum bat. Some say this is because the aluminum bats allow the ball to come off the bat quicker, but studies have shown that the exit speeds' of the balls coming off a wood and aluminum bat are nearly the same. This leaves the Moment of Inertia (MOI) as a possible cause. The MOI is simply where the weight is based in the bat. Wood bats can have the exact same MOI therefore causing the same so-called injuries that the aluminum bats cause (Russell). There has also been a study which compared the number of injuries in the NCAA and the Cape Cod League occurring from wood bats and aluminum bats (Douglas). The study showed that there are in fact more injuries caused from wood bats than aluminum. Most of the wood bat injuries were from thrown or splintered bats in which some resulted in serious injury. Rick Helling knows all too well about the injuries wood bats can cause. Helling, who was pitching for the class AAA Nashville Sounds last year, threw an inside pitch to a batter and shattered his bat which caused a jagged 8 inch shard of the bat to be impaled in his arm. The incident was so gruesome one of his teammates fainted. Recently there have been more injuries occurring such as Helling's which involved a wood bat than those involving aluminum.

Some baseball traditionalists say that the aluminum baseball bat is ruining the integrity of the game. They believe that since the NCAA used to use wooden bats it still should. They say the statistical records broken should not and would not have been broken with wood bats. In their minds these may be valid points, but the NCAA has been using wood bats for so long now that this is basically an outdated argument. The NCAA has also prospered from the use of aluminum bats. The popularity has skyrocketed in recent years which lead to more revenue and TV contracts (Lans). This may or may not have to due with the aluminum bats, but it is clear that they are certainly not hurting the game.

Major League scouts frequently complain that it is tough to evaluate players in the NCAA. Because hitting with an aluminum bat is so much different, scouts have to guess how they would swing a wood bat. According to Russell (2005) the aluminum bat has a sweet spot up to 460 times larger than a wood bat which would make it very difficult for scouts to know who is hitting the ball solidly and who is being helped out by the larger sweet spot. The thing is, of the nearly 10,000 collegiate baseball players (Lans), only a very low percentage of them have a shot at playing professionally. The percentage is so low that it does not make it worthwhile to use wood bats. These professional prospects can swing wood in batting practice and at showcases instead. There are also collegiate summer leagues which use wood bats so scouts have plenty of opportunities to evaluate players with wood bats.

In the NCAA, aluminum bats should not be banned in favor of wood bats. Aluminum bats have been proven to increase performance. The mean batting